


The Spider and the Fly

by thewinterspy



Category: Sherlock (TV), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, F/M, Horror, Thriller, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2014-10-30
Packaged: 2018-02-22 08:24:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2501093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewinterspy/pseuds/thewinterspy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Evil people can do good things. Good people can do evil things. It's almost as if you have the idea of a villain the wrong way around.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stranger

**Author's Note:**

> Spider and the Fly. My darling angel of a fic. I've always had this fic in my drafts, but lately I've just been churning out chapter after chapter, and it seems like I'm on track be finished by Halloween. We'll see how it goes! I hope you enjoy the first chapter.

_At last,  
_ _Up jumped the cunning Spider, and fiercely held (the Fly) fast.  
_ _He dragged her up his winding stair, into his dismal den,  
_ _Within his little parlour — but she ne'er came out again!_

-  _Mary Howitt_

(adapted: s.h.)

 

* * *

 

 

 

The temperature in the Enterprise was dictated by a carefully balanced algorithm that continued to persistently monitor the passengers aboard the star ship. It catered to the most convenient degree that satisfied every species assigned to a specific room, and varied even as passengers moved through the starship. It was a difficult algorithm to program, but when the UFP - United Federation of Planets - was formed, there were adjustments required for certain species to coexist within the same, limited boundaries. Some were cold blooded and needed constant heat - others were from ice planets, far away from any sun to warm them, and had evolved to, not only find warmth unnecessary, but fatal.

 

Molly had spent her entire life specializing as an xenobiologist, following in her father's footsteps. Barely a day went by when her older colleagues didn't comment on how proud he would be of her. She liked to think they were right. She was humble, but she knew she had instincts where others in her field did not. She could recognize a rogue Symbiont possessing an unbonded Trill just by the way the ridges of the Trill's facial spots were textured. When an ancient mummy was unearthed on an unidentified class M planet, Molly was the only one that saw the corpse as its Chameloid - and quite alive - self, due to its reflection in a phaser's metallic shine.

 

As for the man standing in her private quadrant of the medic bay, she knew the layers upon layers of clothing he bore on his back was positively boiling. It was easy enough to tell. To adjust to his needs, the room was getting colder, and colder. Already Molly had to send out a Silurian nurse who was getting faint. But still defiant, even in surrender, the man refused to take off his coat.

 

She felt like a nanny, making a child change. Molly had only approached a prisoner of Starfleet once or twice, and never when she was as high ranked as an ensign. That meant, out of all the people fidgeting around the room, she was the one in charge. Somehow. She didn't feel like she was in charge. Not when the man was watching her with those focused eyes. He looked amused. She was not. She, admittedly to herself, was a little afraid.

 

Molly knew who it was. Of course she did. They all did. That's why all the personnel were skittering around the edges of the room, watching him.

 

John Harrison was a murderer. He was the man who destroyed London, which was home for many members of the Enterprise. Unsurprising. London was one of the highest cities on Earth for Starfleet recruitment. Molly had grown up there. She'd worked right at the archive that was blown up as a Starfleet student.

 

His glare was cruel to meet. Eye contact with Harrison stung the same way a punch would. But it was required that he change. Who knew what he kept underneath all those layers.

 

Molly felt her cheeks go warm at the thought that took hold of her, embarrassed by how... immediate her thoughts wandered somewhere strictly unprofessional. Incredible. Only she, with her morbid sense of humour, would find the man that had near single-handedly devised the deaths of hundreds, actually quite fit.

 

Suddenly, as if he could read her mind, Harrison's mouth curled up in a positively horrifying manner. _Go on Molly,_ she encouraged herself quietly, _You're English. Stiff upper lip. You will not cry because a man mocks you._

 

"Dr. Hooper," one the attendents said nervously, her four hands weaving together in front of her stomach tentatively, "The Captain's reported, he's asked about our progress."

 

"Tell him we're..." Molly stopped, looking over at their prisoner, "Um, are we progressing?"

 

Harrison cocked his head to the side, like a curious dog, and he all but cooed at her, " _Are_ we?"

 

"Uh. Well."

 

She was supposed to be superior to this man and he was dancing circles around her. And only with two bloody words. She didn't mean to make her words into a question. She was supposed to sound sarcastic, unyielding. Not asking him for advice.

 

"You can tell the captain we're, ah, having a bit of trouble getting our charge to cooperate. But-but-but!" Molly said quickly, holding out a hand to stop the nurse as she was about to turn away, "It's nothing I- we- nothing we can't handle. Thank you, Mitzi."

 

After a moment of studying Molly, Mitzi the nurse moved away to report the ensign's assessment. With a sigh, Molly turned back to face Harrison. She reached over, picked up the folded pile of clothes off a table, and moved forward.

 

"Please. You need to change,"

 

Harrison scoffed at her, "An absurd notion. Your rank makes you incapable of accessing my entire file, but I am a Commander, and therefore your Ensign orders are of little value-"

 

"I am assuming by your violations of General Orders-" Molly picked up a PADD and, within direct sight of the man, opened his file, "Here, it says General Orders 2, 3, 7, 15, 19, 21-"

 

"My defiance of General Order 21 has been nothing but rumour-"

 

"Are you denying that you have offered your services to an independent foreign government without the express authorization of the Federation Council? Please do now, we'll be glad to hear we can cut short the number of offenses," Molly cut in.

 

Harrison's eyes narrowed, "I saved your captain, your first officer, and your communications officer's lives down there on the ground. You expect that I would kill Klingons while I am creating an alliance with them? In your captain's vanity he may feel there's reason to neglect the fact, but it is still fact."

 

"It doesn't mean you didn't do a bunch of things wrong!" Molly burst out, slapping the PADD down, "And because of it, I am certain that the superior officers aboard this starship will gladly confirm with me that you are stripped of your commander status, and therefore place _no_ rank, meaning I am in charge, so for goodness sake, take off your clothes, because you are burning up in that bloody big coat!"

 

Molly felt like she was about to explode. Around the room, the attendents gaped at her. Mitzi looked ready to applaud Molly. She blew out her lips and huffed out a breath. Harrison had returned to glaring at her, his eyes narrowed like a hawk's. While Molly was conscious of every set of eyes watching her, he seemed to recognize her as the only other biotic organism in the room.

 

"It is stifling in the coat. How did you know?"

 

"The room temperature. It's too cold because you're too hot," Molly had never gone so red. It didn't help that a shocked twittering came from two nurses watching. Impatient and flustered, Molly ordered, "All personnel, take leave. Everyone, even- even security."

 

"Dr. Hooper-"

 

"Now!"

 

All the attendents glanced at each other, their looks varying from skeptical to frustrated to a general consensus of bafflement. But they all did as ordered, and filed out. The doors gave an affirming click behind them. Locked in. Molly was left alone with the prisoner.

 

"There. Now please, just-" Molly held out the clothes again, but Harrison shook his head. The action was the most motion the man had made since letting himself be walked in.

 

"I have to check physical. Believe me, it's only a few seconds. If it's- nudity, you're concerned about, you can keep your undies on-"

 

With a roll of his eyes, Harrison sighed, "Don't be condescending."

 

"Don't be difficult. All you have to do is change. I'm monitoring for injuries. If you're hurt, it's my job to make sure you're taken care of. Prisoner or Commander or whoever you are,"

 

"An awfully broad spectrum of roles, doctor," Harrison felt inclined to point out, a smile touching his lips like she had missed a clever joke. She had a feeling the joke was about her. Most jokes she missed were.

 

"Is the coat- uh, stuck on you- just tell me, why won't you take off the coat?"

 

"It's not stuck on, do not be obtuse-"

 

Molly reached out for the coat, not realizing how close she had moved to the man, but so focused on accomplishing her task she was ignorant of the sudden proximity, "Then just take it off-"

 

"No-"

 

"-this is not Starfleet issued-"

 

"I imagine it wouldn't be, get off-"

 

"-you need to be checked for injuries-"

 

"I am fine-"

 

"-checked for weapons-"

 

"All of which I willingly gave up, don't touch the coat-"

 

"-and if you don't take it off you'll pass out from the heat and we'll take it off anyways-"

 

"An offense to General Order 2-"

 

"Just take off the coat-!"

 

"No don't-"

 

In their bantering, they circled each other like lions. If lions were rather docile in hunting and were keen on childishly providing a conclusion to a disagreement. Molly would reach out with her hand, Harrison would turn just so to escape her reach. But with a sudden movement with her left as he turned, Molly had gotten hold of the coat's hood, and yanked back viciously. The coat fell from Harrison's shoulders and tumbled to the ground. Clearly he hadn't expected the attack from behind, because he whirled around looking nothing but shocked. He was fast, faster than any reflexes Molly had encountered yet. But she had been facing his back, and she had seen the clumps in the back of his shirt, sticking out from near his shoulder blades and falling down his back. It was no mere fold in the fabric, it couldn't be. Not at the size. It most certainly was not a hump on his back, his posture remained unobstructed. He stood tall and proud, even if his face remained appalled, in a way that did not fit a man who was the epitome of serenity in nature, beautiful and horrifying. Not offended like a school girl.

 

Not... looking so hurt.

 

Molly held out the clothes once more. Harrison met her gaze with that focused look he gave earlier, cutting and cruel and _painful_. Then he looked down at the pile in her hands. The anger and hurt melted away into defeat, and he shut his eyes with a sigh. Reluctantly, he took the clothes from her, crumpling the carefully pressed clothes in one hand.

 

His hands were _huge_. Molly tried not to think about it too much. Instead she walked away, keeping Harrison in the corner of her eye, in case he were inclined to spring a surprise attack on her. She picked up her tricorder, and turned it on. It whirred in her hands. She lifted it up, ready to take Harrison's vitals - and stopped.

 

Harrison had stripped down to his underclothing. Her inappropriate thoughts weren't terribly far from accurate. He was marvellously built, muscles wrapped all over his body through what could only be consistent care. She should have felt a surge of warmth at the sight, felt all fluttery about a handsome man stripped bare in front of her. But it wasn't anything exciting. Only a sense of dread that made her stomach drop.

 

Across his torso, thick leather straps were binded tightly, looping beyond his back to secure a pair of large, pure white wings. Only large by assumption that was. Any pair of wings would have to be useless for the evolved creature if they did not measure proportionately to lift the mass of the creature's body. Harrison was a good six feet tall, his wings - stretched out - would have to be over twelve feet. But they were folded in rigid restraints. The feathers were molting, greasy and dirty. The very sight of them sent phantom pains up and down Molly's spine.

 

This didn't exist. He didn't exist. There were avian creatures, some quite humanoid, some quite capable of intelligent communication, but the anatomy was impossible. There was no pure humanoid species with wings.

 

Angels weren't real.

 

The tricorder beeped in her hands, causing her to snap out of her wandering thoughts. She realized she had been blatantly gawking at the man, and hastily turned her attention to the device. His vitals far above average, which would've held worry for her, but she already knew the reason for his heightened body responses. He was in pain, even if he had mastered hiding the pain. But if those were truly his limbs, and she didn't doubt the wings were a part of his anatomy, then binding them for extended periods of time would inevitably hurt. Molly looked back at Harrison, who was watching her expectantly. Curious, how he could express so much in a single glance. He was waiting for her to give permission to dress, but also daring her to make a commentary on his torn wings.

 

What could she begin to say? _I know you're in pain. I'm sorry._ She wouldn't dare apologize to this man. He owed her an apology. He owed them all an apology for London, and she wouldn't show her pity. Stiff upper lip, she reminded herself. Molly nodded at him, looking delibrately at the clothes he'd set aside. With extreme reluctance, he pulled basic Starfleet black over his head, his wings disappearing under, but still protruding through as uncomfortable bumps. There was little to be done to disguise the wings now. Molly moved across the room to the comm station and signalled the personnel to come back into the room. The doors slid open just after Harrison finished buttoning up the trousers, and the security team came in, phasers ready.

 

"The Captain's asked for immediate transportation to the holding cell," the Andorian chief explained. Molly nodded.

 

"Yes yes, I leave you with my charge," she said dismissively, not wanting to look at Harrison again, "Once we start moving, he'll need to remain in the cell until we reach Earth again. Try and- ah, if anything's the matter, just contact me or Dr. McCoy."

 

Molly was so distracted by giving instructions, she didn't notice the way Harrison's eyes suddenly gleamed at the slip of information she gave. No one did. The team created a tight knit formation around Harrison. The two nurses that had giggled at Molly's slip before watched with wide eyes, staring unabashed at the clumps under Harrison's shirt.

 

"Look at his _spine_ , he's deformed!" one hissed.

 

The response from Harrison was observed that time, if only by Molly. Harrison went completely tense, a muscle in his jaw twitching. The subtle action sent chills running through Molly's body. She found her hand twitching towards the phaser at her hip. But Harrison made no move. He obeyed, and let himself be guided out.

 

* * *

 

 

"Dr. Hooper?"

 

Molly jumped at the sound of her name over the comm. She recognized her superior officer's voice, and went to respond, "Yes, Dr. McCoy?"

 

"Are you able to send John Harrison's vitals to my PADD? We have an issue here,"

 

Molly flicked through her own PADD, "No, it was filed on the tricorder, so it won't be able to be sent out. I can bring it to you, where are you?"

 

"The bridge. I recommend strapping down your quadrant before coming here, though," he grumbled.

 

That made Molly blink in surprise, "Are we experiencing more turbulance?"

 

More than usual, mind. The engine of the Enterprise was still suspended and they were remained immobile. She couldn't begin to imagine how much worse the situation could get.

 

"Just- get down to the bridge."

 

"Yes sir," Immediately, she closed down the comm station, and sent her personnel to fill in the medic bay. Equipped with her tricorder and PADD, Molly made her way down to the bridge.

 

The corridors were thin in population, most people disappearing into seperate rooms, doors sliding shut and clicking into a lock behind them. It wasn't until she nearly walked into the security team when she realized why. Harrison was being escorted down to the medic bay. Dazed, she stumbled to the side so the team could move past. In the middle, Harrison turned his head to watch her as they left. His crystalline eyes were unreadable. He simply looked at her with the same intensity he had at their first meeting. For a moment, her legs screamed at her, telling her to follow. Like a magnet drawn to another, she felt an inexplicable urge to be at his side.

 

As quick as he looked, his gaze turned away, and she was free of the dizzying spell he put over her. With a small shake of her head, she turned and went in the opposite direction to get to the bridge. She entered the clearance chamber, and the door to the bridge slid open for her.

 

"Permission to come aboard?" she waited at the threshold.

 

"Granted."

 

She stepped onto the bridge, looking around the room. Most station shifts were doubled, one person sitting down at each section with another hovering over them. All divisions - operations, science, and engineering - were milling about, trying to give some control back to the starship. Over the front monitor, a face she recognized as their Admiral, Alexander Marcus, was frowning down at them.

 

Captain Kirk sat in his chair, coolly regarding his superior. Molly hovered cautiously at the door. Dr. McCoy, noticing her, quietly took her by the arm and guided her to his side. She hugged her arms close and watched the confrontation.

 

"-I wasn't expecting to get word that you'd taken Harrison into custody in violation of your order," Marcus was saying, leaning back in his chair. The bridge that the Admiral was in was nothing like the Enterprise's, its panelling dark and emergency lights set to blue, giving the atmosphere an unnerving appearance.

 

Kirk nodded his head, "Well we... we had to improvise, when our warp core unexpectedly malfunctioned. But you already knew that, didn't you sir?"

 

"I don't take your meaning,"

 

"Well that's why you're here, isn't it, to assist with our repairs?" Kirk's voice was on edge, vicious even when bearing naivety, "Why else would the head of Starfleet _personally_ come to the edge of the Neutral Zone?"

 

The helmsman warned quietly, "Captain, they're scanning our ship."

 

Molly frowned, but not in confusion. There was only thing the Admiral would find valuable, and that was the prisoner they kept aboard. Admiral Marcus' probing question only confirmed.

 

"Where's your prisoner, Kirk?"

 

"Per Starfleet regulation, I'm planning on returning _Khan_ to Earth to stand trial."

 

At that, Molly turned her gaze to Dr. McCoy. He sighed down at her, shaking his head.

 

"S'long story," he grumbled.

 

"Point form?" Molly whispered as Marcus revealed that he had been hiding the information from Kirk and his crew.

 

"John Harrison really named Khan, 300 year old man protecting his family inside the torpedoes we have on board. Marcus blackmailed him into creating weapons for a war that hasn't happened yet," Leonard expositioned.

 

"His family are a bunch of machines?"

 

"His family are in cyrotubes in the torpedoes."

 

"Oh," Molly went high-pitched, "Okay. That makes sense,"

 

Sensing sarcasm, McCoy sighed and crossed his arms, "Yeah. I know. Give it time."

 

The two doctors turned their attention back to the screen as Marcus' voice got louder.

 

"-but I made a mistake, and now the blood of everybody killed is on my hands. So I'm asking you, give him to me, so that I can end what I started."

 

"And what exactly would you like me to do with the rest of his crew, Sir? Fire them at the Klingons? End seventy two lives? Star a war in the process?"

 

The word war was like a trigger for her. She suddenly realized where she knew the name Khan from.

 

“Oh my god, they don't mean Khan _Noonien Singh_ , do they?” she asked.

 

McCoy raised his eyebrows, “Guy that took over the world in the 90s with his friends, and then proceeded to start World War Three? Yeah, that guy.”

 

“Blimey,” Molly breathed.

 

"-You saw what this man could do all by himself, do you imagine what would happen if we woke the rest of his crew? What else did he tell you, that he's a peacekeeper?"

 

Molly's blood boiled as the man continued to speak. Everyone knew the suffering of London. Members of the Enterprise had faced that suffering themselves, losing family. They all knew the monster they had caged in their starship. How dare he assume they were faint of heart for the man. Well, she thought in contrast, her own pitying emotions didn't exactly support her argument. She was a rarity. She was the only one that had seen the sight on his back truly, as opposed to ragged fabric clumps.

 

Watching the Admiral speak in his venemous way made her realize one thing. Harrison's - Khan's - wings, must have been tied by him. Why would Khan submit himself to what was obviously a pain, something that was quite obviously an act of humilation? Marcus hid his wings, binded them. She knew the purpose of the leather straps then. To constantly remind Khan what he was. Trapped.

 

"Now I'm gonna ask you again," Admiral Marcus was saying to her captain, "One last time, son. Lower your shields. Tell me where he is."

 

Only a glance around the room told Molly that everyone was watching the captain expectantly. She did not what to expect. She wanted Kirk to shun their commander, to escape into the depths of space until all the answers were given to all questions. But the consequences of the situation were dire. The likelihood of surviving if they defied the Admiral, who was so keen on war that he'd sacrifice any life, was low.

 

Her life depended on Kirk's answer.

 

"He's in engineering, sir. But I'll have him moved to the transporter room right away."

 

Admiral Marcus nodded, and replied "I'll take your word," before disappearing off the main screen.

 

Immediately, Captain Kirk was on his feet, barking out commands to his helmsman, "Do not drop those shields, Mr. Sulu."

 

First Officer Spock moved to the Captain's side, orbiting him carefully as Kirk moved about the room issuing orders, "Given that you are aware that Khan's true location is in the med bay, may I know the details of your plan?"

 

"I told Marcus we were bringing a fugitive back to Earth, that's what we're gonna do. Bones-"

 

Dr. McCoy uncrossed his arms and stepped forwards, "Captain?"

 

"Report back to the med bay, fast as you can. I want you keeping an eye on Khan."

 

As fast as the instruction was given, Kirk was whirling away. Dr. McCoy took Molly by the elbow again.

 

"You got his vitals?"

 

"Yessir. And some information you'll probably be interested in, strictly biology wise."

 

"Tell me on the way."

 

The two doctors rushed out of the bridge as Molly let out a small, "Well, you might want to wait until we have time to sit down for this one."

 

* * *

 

 

Khan was as still as a statue, even as Molly and Dr. McCoy tumbled into the room. Dr. Marcus however, whipped her head around in surprise, "What's the matter-"

 

"We're going into warp, we'll need to keep everything secure. Admiral Marcus just showed up as captain of a gigantic starship with a paintjob, we're heading back to Earth," McCoy nodded to Khan, "We're giving you your trial. Not that you'll be getting an unbiased jury, but you can share your side of the story."

 

Khan didn't look the slightest bit relieved. He sat ramrod straight, inclining his head to the CMO, "Marcus is piloting a Dreadnought class. No one's safe at warp,"

 

There was a beat of silence, then Dr. Marcus spat out a, "Shit!"

 

She whirled on her heel and raced out of the med bay, presumably right down to the bridge. Molly watched her leave, baffled, "No one's safe at warp, what does that mean?"

 

"Dreadnought class starships are designed strictly for combat, as opposed to the rest of your vessels. Entirely weaponized, to be sup-"

 

"Superior in every way, yeah yeah," McCoy was standing in front of him, hands on his hips, "That's great and all, but you seriously can't be telling me that Marcus can _follow_ us?"

 

"He can. He is. Warp is the only time in which a starship cannot be protected by its shields. A fault your inferior minds didn't find problematic," Khan raised an eyebrow at McCoy.

 

"Shit. Is that why Carol ran? God damn it-" McCoy was across the room in a second, moving to the comm station to report, "Captain, we've got a problem here-"

 

The entire room shook, throwing everyone off their feet. Even Khan, not restrained to the table, lost balance and fell to his knees. Molly tumbled over, trying to catch a hold of the table in front of her, but her grip slipped and she went right down. Pain bloomed in her head, and her vision spotted as her head cracked against the side of the table. Aside from the emergency red lights, spots of scarlet appeared in mid air, only to disappear immediately.

 

"Dr. Hooper, are you alright?"

 

She couldn't identify who it was for the life of her, but it didn't matter. A pair of arms were moving her, getting her into a sitting position as the ship was hit again. Luckily, a hand cupped the back of her head as the force of the attack rocked her neck violently to the side. The protection stopped her from hitting her head again. She opened her eyes, blinked out the floaters, only for her sight to sharpen on the face of Khan looking down at her.

 

"He's here, Marcus' here isn't he?" she mumbled.

 

"Yes. Hull breach I believe, your starship's being torn apart,"

 

Molly shook her head, not caring that it brought back the aching pain, "No. No no no, it can't, there's-"

 

"People on board. Dying. I know. I warned your captain," Khan explained, sounding indifferent. It made Molly want to cry. No, this was her crew, this was her family-

 

Khan took her face in his hands, not tightly, but firmly, and made her meet that impossible gaze, "No. No tears, you can't cry now. There's no time. You have to be brave, Dr. Hooper."

 

"We're going to die-"

 

Before he could reply, the ship's lights sprung back on, and the shaking stopped. Molly could barely process it before two security personnel grabbed Khan and yanked him away from Molly.

 

McCoy was at her side, helping her to her feet, "You good, Moll?"

 

'Moll' wasn't good, not from Leonard. Dr. McCoy was one of the most professional men Molly knew, but his concern remained an immediate giveaway to the care he had for his officers. Moll only slipped out of his mouth when he was scared.

 

"Yes, um, no no, I'm fine. I hit my head, he helped me. He's fine," she nodded to the guards. Reluctantly, they let go of Khan. The man rolled his shoulders back, and for a moment Molly was certain she saw the wings underneath extend out. But then he settled, casting looks about him. Then, he climbed back to his original sitting position on the table. The lack of grace he held to it stunned Molly for a moment. Which was silly, she knew in immediate hindsight. Even if his anatomy gave him the appearance of an angel, he was human. And humans were rather graceless fools.

 

"Well," Dr. McCoy cleared his throat uneasily, "Back to the basics, then. Dr. Hooper, I'd like to show you something about our friend."

 

They crossed the room, and McCoy gestured for Molly to look into a microscope.

 

"Blood sample from our friend here," he explained as the ensign studied carefully.

 

"They're - regenerating," Molly leaned back, "But that doesn't make any sense, there's no biotic – that is, there's nothing to replenish blood for. It's just on a slide. It's like, it's designed like a-"

 

"Virus. But maybe not such a bad one. You still have the tricorder, right?"

 

Molly passed it over, and McCoy started transferring the data, "Perfect. Now, I have a theory, little experiment just to test it-"

 

He was cut off by the sound of the med bay doors opening, and their captain rushing in. He looked torn between turning his wrath on anyone that dared defy him in the slightest way, or bursting into tears and crumpling to the floor. Instead of either, he made his way to Khan and stopped directly in front of him.

 

"Tell me everything you know about that ship," Kirk demanded.

 

Khan was all too happy to oblige.

 

* * *

 

 

"Point form," Molly said, crossing her arms and leaning against the desk McCoy was working at.

 

"Kirk and Khan are going into the USS Vengeance to rescue Scotty and dismantle the crew aboard that ship so we're not blown to bits."

 

"Okay, and why aren't we already blown to bits?"

 

"Scotty disabled the starship's weapons temporarily to give us time because he snuck aboard the ship when Kirk received the vague tip from Khan."

 

"Why didn't Khan tell us all of this augment family stuff in the first place?"

 

McCoy puffed out his cheeks and blew out air, "... Cinematic effect?"

 

With a giggle that, embarrassingly enough, turned into a snort, Molly hastily covered her mouth, "Ohhh, lord. Alright, I'm emptying the tricorder data. Do you know where the dock is?"

 

"I... shit, think it's inside the vent filters. Just by the console, sorry-"

 

Molly pushed herself to stand, brushing off her uniform, "That's alright, I can go get it. Everything good here?"

 

"I think good's a relative term, on this ship," McCoy grumbled. Molly smiled, gave a two finger salute, and dashed off.

 

The vent filters was a claustrophobic room, thin enough for the lighting above to fit on the ceiling, making the room blindly white. Blinking quickly to adjust, Molly stepped in and closed the door behind her. All across one wall, various buttons, switches, and dials were scattered. Monitors calculated every single element and their percentages aboard the ship. An emergency spacesuit was hanging in a locker at the very end of the room and, perched on the top shelf, was the dock Molly was looking for to insert her tricorder. She was just about to reach for it when one of the monitors beeped. A warning appeared, with terminology far beyond her science side lexicon. This was for engineering to understand. But, after reading through thrice, she realized it was simply warning about the attack on their hull. She knew about that already, and she sincerely doubted that all the senior engineering officers were not in the know about that too. So she closed the message, knowing nothing would go wrong if she did, and reached out for the tricorder. That was precisely when what she recognized as First Officer Spock's voice sounded throughout the room.

 

"-broadcast on all channels. We need witnesses for this," his voice came out a sneer, utterly disgusted, "Khan's betrayed us."

 

“Oh, you're _smart,_ Mr. Spock.”

 

Molly froze at the voice. Low and dark and terrifying. It was the criminal she did the physical for when he first stepped on board the Enterprise. He was her patient. John Harrison. Khan. He had so many names for a title that simply equated to _dangerous_. His demands were simple. His crew handed over to him and he would let them all survive. Spock negotiated, desperate to save the captain, which from her understanding, was held captive on board the USS Vengeance.

 

"We have no transporter capabilities-" Spock insisted, ferocious and unyielding in the face of the adversary.

 

"Fortunately mine are perfectly functioning. Drop your shields,"

 

Molly's heart clenched. He'd kill them all anyways. They were all going to die anyways. She stood facing the monitors, watching as the hull's essential elements depleted into nothingness, disappearing into space. They were all going to die anyways, suffocating in space's nothingness. Her ears felt like they were ringing, as if the impact to her head earlier was still an influence on her hearing.

 

"If you destroy our ship, you will also destroy your people," the first officer reminded with a edge to his voice.

 

That's all he wanted. All he wanted was his people. His family. He just wanted them, and maybe, just maybe, he'd go away.

 

"Your crew requires oxygen to survive, mine do not," Khan said, his voice echoing in the claustrophobic room, "I will target your life supports systems located behind the aft nacelle, and after every single person aboard your ship suffocates."

 

Why didn't his crew need to breathe? Everyone needed to breathe. Every single sentient being in the universe discovered so far needed oxygen to survive. Anyone else died. But Khan and his crew were unlike anything seen before. A humanoid species with a pair of wings. A pair of angel wings.

 

Angels didn't exist.

 

Did they?

 

"And after every single person aboard your ship suffocates, I will walk over your cold corpses to recover my people. Now."

 

Molly's eyes flicked from the monitors to the dials lined up next to it, then over to the spacesuit hanging up.

 

"Shall."

 

She knew why Khan had come aboard the Enterprise.

 

"We."

 

Molly's hand darted out and spun the dials she was staring right at, and reached out for the helmet of the suit.

 

"Begin?"

 

* * *

 

 

Commander Spock lowered his gaze, disgusted. He looked exactly like Marcus did then, that first day when he stepped out of his frozen tomb and stretched his wings. His blood positively boiled, and promised himself to crush the hideous Vulcan's skull beneath his foot when he entered the Enterprise to finish off anyone that could get in his way.

 

"Lower shields," the Vulcan finally spat out. Good Starfleet pet, Khan thought viciously.

 

"A wise choice, Mr. Spock," he immediately turned, going over to the helmsman panel to study the Enterprise. He prompted the computer to look specifically for his torpedoes. Hidden in the weapons bay still, perfect. All the lost hope came rushing back, filling his heart with power unlike any other. He would have his kingdom back, his kingdom of gods over mortals.

 

"I see all 72 torpedoes are still in their tubes. If they're not mine, Commander," Khan kindly reminded, "I will know it."

 

"Vulcans do not lie," Spock assured. Khan couldn't help the scoff that slipped, but managed to subdue the _"Bullshit"_ that made its way up his tongue. He'd face enough of Starfleet's New Vulcan officers to know the expression of a lying Vulcan, "The torpedoes are yourrrrr-"

 

"Thank you, Mr. Spock," Khan said, watching his screen as his ship's computer confirmed that the Enterprise's shields were dropped. He opened up a channel to his transporter room and began the transition of the torpedoes. It wasn't until he heard a series of very loud thumps that he looked up, surprised to see that the Enterprise's viewing screen was still open, but not a single Enterprise officer was to be seen. He frowned, and stood up straight.

 

"Mr. Spock?" he tried. After a long moment with no reply, he walked around his helmsman panel and approached the screen, "Mr. Spock?"

 

"He dropped out," Kirk grunted at his feet. Khan delivered a kick to make him shut up. The pathetic human was out like a light.

 

"Is this some kind of game?" he wondered. He wouldn't be surprised. His understanding 23rd century culture was still fatally undereducated.

 

"Don't tell me this is some kind of..." he raised his eyebrows, widening his eyes in an exaggerated manner, "Vulcan hide and seek?"

 

The computer beeped behind him, and chirped from the speakers, "High levels of carbon monoxide on board the Enterprise, sir."

 

He whirled around in surprise, "They're... _dead?_ "

 

"No!" Dr. Marcus gasped from the side, "No, no they can't be!"

 

Impatient, Khan marched back to the panel and checked the transporter channel. The torpedoes were ready for beaming. He was about to hit the button, when his computer spoke again. Only, the voice had changed.

 

"Commander Harrison! I-I mean, Commander Khan- or uh, Khan, I-"

 

He recognized that voice. It was the doctor on board the Enterprise, the one that supervised him. Well, supervised was a very liberal term. He looked up, and the doctor stepped into view of the screen. She wore a space helmet over her head, the front visar turned off so her face was visible.

 

"Doctor Hooper," he replied, stunned, "Did you-"

 

"I just came from the vent filters, through the med bay of this ship. Your crew's cryotubes are there, in the med bay! Commander, they've been removed from the torpedoes you were about to beam aboard your ship. I mean, it's up to you if you want to take the torpedoes, if you feel your starship is feeling a lack of offensive manuovers-"

 

"You killed your crew,"

 

“Starfleet tried to kill yours. I figure that's a debt repaid. But...”

 

There had to be a catch, what was the woman's bloody catch?

 

"Yes?" he persisted.

 

"From _Molly_ to _Khan_ , might I ask a favour?"

 

Khan opened his mouth, and hesitated. Yet, his immediate response still managed to slip out, "Anything."

 

"When you beam your crew up, take me with you,"

 

"Why?"

 

"Logically?" Dr. Hooper asked, tilting her head as if genuinely curious in his decision, "Or sentimentally?"

 

Tilting his head in the opposite direction, Khan realized he was in fact, rather amused. Baffled, yes, but it was entertaining conversation, to say the least.

 

"Both."

 

"I'm a, ah- xenobiologist, I specialize in figuring out alien anatomy. You'll need a chief medical officer on board your ship if you're to continue piloting it with your crew, a CMO who is aware of the technology of this era. You're a warrior, Khan, not a healer. I can treat your crew,"

 

"You specialize in alien anatomy," he pointed out.

 

"We both know you're far from human." Dr. Hooper gave a tiny gulp, looking down as she shifted on her feet. Slowly, she continued on, "My dad, he was dying, a while back. And I used to cry over it, a lot. I couldn't hide that I was sad about his death around him. I couldn't even look at him without crying. He used to tell me not to, not to be upset, that he was going to be alright, and I would be alright too. Because when he was gone, an angel was going to come. An angel was going to come and watch over me. And then, you came to me. Daddy wasn't wrong, you came to me. Please. Khan, he knew you would find me. Let me come with you,"

 

Khan's hand shook at his side. Realizing it, he hastily used it to wipe at his mouth, running through his options. He knew nothing of Dr. Hooper, how could he decide?

 

No. Wait. He did know her. She was intelligent, capable of recognizing the body temperature of a being simply by a starship's reaction to them. She was empathetic, judging by the way she looked at him when she saw him in his chains. Going by that same reasoning, she was naive, because she let her empathy overrule her instinct to perceive danger.

 

He looked at the screen her face was projected onto. Her eyes wide in anticipation. It was the same screen he was speak to Commander Spock to. It was high likely that the Vulcan had already died. If he had not, would he not intervene with Dr. Hooper and her negotiation? No, the Commander was killed by Dr. Hooper.

 

Dr. Hooper was ruthless.

 

Dr. Hooper was a murderer.

 

Dr. Hooper was just about as evil as he was.

 

"Stay still," he ordered, and tapped the screen before him.

 

Yellow and white light swirled around Dr. Hooper, and she closed her eyes. A victorious smile hung on her lips before she disappeared. Khan closed the view screen, and turned to his sensor monitor. studied the screen. The ship confirmed Dr. Hooper's presence in his transporter room. He quickly prompted his computer to then find the cryotubes in the med bay. Commanding the ship to take care of lifting the tubes from the Enterprise and into his cargo bay, Khan was finally able to move on from his worry. He was in control. His kingdom awaited.

 

Khan moved immediately, grabbing the phaser that had been dropped by the Captain's chair. Behind him, he heard the two men he held hostage waking up. He turned, and faced them all with his phaser ready. The engineer, Scotty, started moving towards Dr. Marcus to check on her injury, the one Khan had implemented on her.

 

"Don't move," he warned. To show his resolve, he unlocked his phaser and changed the setting to kill.

 

"I have to check her leg-" Scotty said, scooting closer to Dr. Marcus. Khan shot him dead, ignoring the shouts of protest from captain and doctor, before turning his phaser onto the captain.

 

"Choice is yours. Eternal imprisonment, or death."

 

Kirk's breathing was heavy, still recovering from his unconscious state, and the heavy weight of knowing everything and everyone he held most dear was gone. He supported himself on both arms, elbows propped up. He breathed out his chief engineer's name, and blinked out the tears in his eyes before he showed his vulnerability. Of course, it was already too late for that.

 

"Captain?" Khan asked. He remembered words the recently passed Admiral once spoke, and let his lips curl into a cruel smile, "If you have anything to say, say it. Tomorrow's too late,"

 

The blond adjusted, pushing himself up with a hand, "You know what I'm gonna say,"

 

"Surely something heroic," Khan condescended, "You humans are so fond of heroic last words. Something poetic, something to remembered forever by. Something along the lines of 'go fuck yourself', hm? How sophisticated."

 

The look that contorted on Kirk's face made the augment laugh. He felt big again, so so important. His wings stretched against their restraints, damn the pain. He wouldn't have the straps that held him down soon. Starfleet would never ruin him again. Starfleet would never cage him again. Starfleet would fall, and he'd be the one to make it do precisely so.

 

He brought a hand forth to steady his aim, and sneered, "Your ship has fallen. You know what that means, Cap..."

 

Khan tilted his head, and added cruelly, "Mister Kirk. Now that means you're not a captain of anything. You see? No one will remember you. No one will ever wonder what your famous last words were. So let's spare you the pain of knowing just how alone in the universe you are at the moment and _get on with it_."

 

"Stop it, stop your cruelty now," Dr. Marcus snapped, choking out the words through her tears.

 

"No, I don't think I will. You see, Dr. Marcus, both of you are incapacitated, _caged_ as the man who trapped them talked and taunted and projectiled absolute _torture_ for hours and hours on end. I realize you two won't recognize the parallel, but the irony of the situation is _delicious_. The wheel keeps turning, nothing changes. You do not know cruelty, Dr. Marcus, you don't know your father like I do. Well. Like I did. No, I won't stop, because your father never did. He took me out, he brought me to this hideous, disgusting world of yours, and when I told him I wouldn't do his dirty work, he told me my friends would die, taunting me, just like this. He taunted for days, and when he was finished, he gave me this prison of mine."

 

Khan grabbed his shirt and yanked it back and forth, his mouth parting in a snarl. He stretched against it with his wings, forcing pressure at the straps that would not yield, but still contorting his shape into a truer form. Dr. Marcus and Kirk watched in horror.

 

"You're a monster," Kirk spat.

 

"Perhaps," Khan shrugged lamely, "But at least-"

 

He aimed his phaser again, and gave a killer smile, "I admit to it."

 

The zap of a laser still couldn't drown out Dr. Marcus' sobs.

 


	2. Acquaintance

_He remembered the feeling of grass. Soft like a carpet, longer in a way that he could sink into it. He could feel the dirt getting in between his feathers, and giggled to himself. He wasn't allowed to get dirty. This must be a special occasion. The tree branches above him swayed with the wind. The breeze plucked a few of the apples from it. One landed hard on his belly, making him give a small 'oof'! He giggled some more, flipping onto his side to let the fruit roll off him. With a flick of his hand, it went off down the small hill, until he reached out with his wing and rolled it back._

 

_"Subject!" Dr. Soong's voice called. He lifted his head, seeing the scientist watching from the picnic table. He got to his feet and brushed down the stark white uniform the administors gave him. He hurried over, the wind catching in his wings and carrying him faster. Dr. Soong smiled in approval at his gliding._

 

_"I see you're getting eager to fly, Subject Zero Zero One," the scientist remarked. The boy nodded once sharply, but was unable to help the goofy smile that appeared on his mouth._

 

_"Yessir,"_

 

_The scientist smiled, and gestured to the table, "You hungry? We've only got the hour before we have to return inside. You'll have to find a way to clean your wings before the administrators see,"_

 

_Subject 001 sat down across from him, and reached out for one of the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He was only ever allowed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when he was with Dr. Soong on their incursions, and he Absolutely Positively Adored them._

 

_"Dr. McGivney is visiting Zero Zero Four today, sir," the boy said, "She_ likes _grooming me,"_

 

_"Yes, but will you have time for that? You're being presented today," Dr. Soong bit into his own sandwich, and made a noise of approval. He had a habit of making that sound whenever he did anything, really. But that was because anything Dr. Soong did was worth approval. Nothing Was Wrong With Him._

 

_"If the administrators don't like how I'll look, they'll let Dr. McGivney do what she wants. They want their pretty little bird," Subject 001 scoffed._

 

_The scientist chuckled, "Much like your wings, your dismissiveness grows. Everything_ doesn't matter _to you, doesn't it Subject Zero Zero One?"_

 

_Everything froze in the boy. His sudden fear could have been hidden, if not for the way his wings tucked in close at the sound of Dr. Soong's dangerous voice. Of course, it wasn't dangerous to other scientists, or administrators. No, that voice was dangerous only to subjects like him. He did something Wrong and Dr. Soong didn't like that. And when Dr. Soong didn't like something, bad things happened. The scientist eyed Subject 001, and his lips curled up._

 

_"Your wings are your tell, subject. You have quite the poker face, but you still wear your heart on your sleeve,"_

 

_"I'm sorry for my arrogance, Dr. Soong."_

 

_"What else will you apologize for?" the scientist asked, nothing in his voice portraying joy or humor._

 

_"... Getting my clothes dirty,"_

 

_Dr. Soong's fist slammed on the table, "You've ruined your wings. Do you know what happens when wings are ruined, subject?"_

 

_"It means I can't fly," the subject said quickly. He stood up, and held his hands in prayer in front of his chest, "But I was just gliding moments ago, they're fine!"_

 

_The scientist lunged across the table and grabbed Subject 001 by the face, pulling him forwards. The boy didn't make a sound, by the edge of the table dug into his stomach, hurting him. Dr. Soong pointed his face to the sky, and pointed a thin finger up._

 

_"What is that up there? What is it?!"_

 

_Subject 001 looked up at the blinding bright light in the sky. His eyes stung at the sight, but he didn't dare close them or look away._

 

_"Heaven,"_

 

_"That's right. Why do you fly, subject? Why did I give you your wings?"_

 

_"Because I'm going to fly to Heaven,"_

 

_"Wrong!"_

 

_Dr. Soong threw the subject away. He landed in the dirt, catching his fall with one wing._

 

Don't cry, don't cry, _he warned himself as Dr. Soong stood to tower over him._

 

_"You got your wings, so you can carry_ me  _to the light. So you can carry us all to the paradise we deserve. You're stronger than any human, why?"_

 

_"So I can carry you-"_

 

_"And?"_

 

_"And kill anyone who stands in the way,"_

 

_Immediately, Dr. Soong was on his knees, taking Subject 001's face in both hands. He gave a big grin._

 

_"Yes. Yes. That's it. That's what I wanted to hear. Thank you, subject,"_

 

_"You're welcome. Sir," the subject added the title hastily. Dr. Soong got to his feet, and even pulled Subject 001 with him._

 

_"Now then, that's settled. Do you want to finish your sandwich?"_

 

_Subject 001 smiled, and nodded, "Yes sir!"_

 

_"You've realized your mistake, subject," Dr. Soong took the boy by the shoulder and guided him gently back to his seat. He even pet his hair affectionately, "Sir's always been very formal for us. Remember what I wanted you to call me?"_

 

_"Are you sure?"_

 

_"You've earned it," Dr. Soong smiled, "Go on. Say it this one time."_

 

_"Thank you," the boy shifted in his seat, abashed and honored to have such a privilege. He smiled, and looked up again, "Thank you, Dr. Noonian Soong."_

 

_The scientist smiled, and squeezed the winged boy's shoulder._

 

* * *

 

 

Khan flinched violently at the touch, his eyes snapping open. A pair of brown eyes hovered over him.

 

"I-I'm sorry to wake you, you fell asleep, I was worried."

 

He sat up, looking around him. He was still in the bridge, sitting in the navigator's chair. After escorting the last hostage to her permanent cell and cleaning up the mess, he had been charting the ship out into unknown space, hoping to find a planet to set up long enough to get his crew back and prepared for war against Earth. But he'd fallen asleep. Stupid, _stupid_. The USS Vengeance was now drifting aimlessly off in a quadrant of the Neutral Zone, tortuously close to Klingon territory. Immediately, he started pushing buttons on the screen in front of him, prepared to turn around. A small hand on his shoulder gave him pause.

 

Dr. Hooper gave him a weary smile, looking exhausted herself.

 

"When's the last time you properly slept?"

 

"What day is it?" he croaked out, trying to make a joke, but it fell flat. He didn't expect his voice to sound so hoarse. Her smile returned, and she patted his shoulder. Then, she pointed to the screen.

 

"There's a Class M planet not far off, we can stay there for now. I know you're looking for somewhere safe, but you've hit your point. All the adrenaline's gone, time to go lie down,"

 

He shook his head, "I don't need sleep."

 

With a huff, the doctor waved her hand over the screen, shutting it down. When Khan protested, she shook her head, "No, _off_ to bed with you. Honestly, I'm not your mother,"

 

His confusion gave Dr. Hooper the advantage to push him out of his seat until he stood up, and to start guiding him out of the bridge. Khan barely had the time to ask what exactly a mother was, until Dr. Hooper had the smarts to ask the ship where the captains quarters were. They got into the chamber, and she escorted him right to the bed.

 

"Get some sleep. The ship will wake you if anything's amiss, you know it will. I'll stay up anyways, I'm too-" she waved her hands around, then bounced on her feet, "Jittery. Still got the adrenaline rush. You just crashed though, c'mon,"

 

"I really am fine-" he tried, but she peeled off the covers and sat him down.

 

After a long moment of him sitting and watching her, Dr. Hooper gestured to his legs and signed him tucking himself in. With a sigh, he toed off his boots, and got into the bed. He was about to roll onto his back before his wings gave a wince of pain. With a small huff of exertion, he got up to lie down on his stomach.

 

"Oh,"

 

He looked up at Dr. Hooper, daring her to pity him. It was an awful look on her face, it contorted her otherwise pleasant nose.

 

"What?" he sneered.

 

"We can- oh no, let's get those ah- straps? The leather things-"

 

"Restraints," he suggested. She nodded.

 

"Let's get those restraints off," Dr. Hooper said.

 

Khan gave a sigh, and shook his head, “It's not as easy as you think.”

 

“But doesn't it hurt?” Slowly, the doctor sat down beside him. Her hand reached out for his back, before realizing herself and drawing it back, “I mean, doesn't it hurt your... um, wings?”

 

“It does. But it can't be removed by my hands. The clips are coded to Starfl...” he trailed off, realizing what an absolute clot he was. Finally, he sat up straight, “Oh fucking hell.”

 

Dr. Hooper blinked in surprise, but she caught on to his train of thought, “They can removed by a Starfleet officer. I can help,”

 

“Exactly. Of course you can help. Here,” he tugged his legs out so he was sitting parallel to her, and reached down to tug off his shirt. Once removed, he placed in his lap and began folding it. He had no idea Dr. Hooper was staring until he looked up to meet those big brown eyes, only to see that she wasn't looking at his face at all. She wasn't even unabashedly studying his chest, the way she had before when he was changing into the basic Starfleet black during their first meeting. Instead, she watched as his wings twitched anxiously in their cage. He immediately cursed himself internally. His wings were always his tell, the twitch in his poker face. But... of course, Dr. Hooper didn't know that.

 

She reached out finally, touching the clasps that fastened over his shoulder blades. The hidden machinery whirred warningly, causing her to jerk back. Khan caught her wrist before she could retreat from her promise. She _would not._ Not when he'd waited so long for this precious moment. He stared her down, making sure she had made no mistake in her next action.

 

She was terrified of him. Good.

 

Slowly, she touched the tips of her fingers against the clasps, pushing harder when the locks beeped out cautious sounds. There was a long silence, but Khan didn't dare remove his hand from her wrist, and she didn't dare try to move back in defeat.

 

The clasps finally made a click, and he grunted in pain as the straps fell. The ache lasted long enough that he let go of Dr. Hooper's wrist so he could fist his hands against his knees. Instead of moving away, she took the final strap that was looped in front of his stomach that kept the entire contraption together and unfastened it. In a final act of closure, she took the damned cage and tossed it away.

 

“There, all better,” she said in a cheerful voice. Her anxiety made the tone quiver in the air, uncertain and fearful. She didn't disguise the flinch of surprise when his wings, already unfolding in their new space, brushed against her arm.

 

It felt good. It ached and ached like nothing Khan had ever experienced before, but the stretch felt like exercise. He didn't even hide the breathless laugh that escaped him, the smile that refused to leave his lips. He felt truly invincible, all that power he lost surging back through his spine, right into his bones, his feathers. He felt like flying. The muscle memory had not died. If he had had the space, he would have taken off right there. The adrenaline crash that had him reliving those awful moments so many years ago mere minutes ago was a distant event. His pulse was racing. He could do anything.

 

His wing brushed against Dr. Hooper again, and he acted instinctively. He grabbed her by the arms, simultaneously pulling her onto the bed further and pushing her back as he twisted. One knee pressed against her hip, he hovered over her. His wings stretched to their full length. There was not an inch of her space he did not invade. If she so much as breathed it had to be with his permission.

 

But she didn't dare. The oxygen in her lungs was closed in, as she looked up at him with those wide brown eyes.

 

He wanted to kiss her. Forget that, he wanted to strip her of that pathetic Starfleet uniform and fuck her into the mattress, where she'd stay for whenever he wanted her. The look in her eyes didn't even discourage the idea. If anything, the look in her eyes convinced him that she had come up with the idea and implanted it directly into his mind. The way her lungs finally gave up their hostage and had her releasing her exhale, causing her chest to heave suddenly against his, the air she sucked back in greedily... It was enough temptation for him to want her oxygen trapped again inside her, instead sealing his lips over hers.

 

But, he didn't. He waited, feeling her breathe against him, letting her know that he was granting her each and every single one of her inhales and exhales.

 

“I will have my kingdom back,” he finally spoke. Unsure of where the words came from, and yet they came out confidently, even if quietly, “I will have my people returned to me. And it's all because of you,”

 

She didn't reply, still breathing heavily through her nose. If she so much as tilted her chin up, their lips would have touched, and he knew he wouldn't want any other. Sparing himself the commitment, he finally stood. His mind was buzzing, alight and far too awake to even attempt rest. He turned and walked past, not only his abandoned cage, but the shirt he'd folded perfectly.

 

_Not that Dr. Hooper would protest,_ he thought to himself with a small smirk.

 

* * *

 

 

Khan had several charts and maps and sensors open on the view screen before him as he continued charting their journey. One ankle on his knee to balance the PADD in his lap, he looked back and forth between the two screens as he considered the route leading along Orion's Belt. There was a Starfleet base situated in the asteroid belt just beyond Earth's visible view, and it would be hard to navigate around, but it wasn't anything his vessel couldn't defeat. Hell, he was sure he could just send in Dr. Hooper. It'd be fascinating to see her at work again. Not only that, but he could evaluate her prowess with hand to hand combat.

 

Speaking of the doctor, she slipped into the bridge without his notice. It was only when she stepped into his line of sight that he realized she was there. Khan set aside his PADD to look at her in approval. The ridiculous Starfleet blue had been replaced with the standard basic black, and her now wet hair had been drawn back in a ponytail.

 

“What are you doing?” she asked, crossing her arms over herself as she got closer.

 

“Figuring out where exactly we're going. Orion seems the safest route to your suggestion of a Class M. I checked the planet, it does have a base set on it, but it was abandoned when the indigenous species... died out?”

 

“Belluvians,” Dr. Hooper nodded, “They were harvesters, and relied solely on the crops. Not that it was a problem, their farms grew all over. But one day the food supply just stopped. No one knows why, it's like the soil gave up. They all starved to death,”

 

“Awful,” he murmured.

 

“Unfortunately so,” she replied with equally somber tone, “But the Starfleet base was a spot to stop between Valmerga and Coon, they decided it wasn't worth the resources.”

 

Khan leaned back in his chair, and made up his mind. He directed the computer to follow the Belt along, right to the unnamed Class M.

 

“Thank you for your help, but what are you doing in here?” he wondered.

 

“Oh!” Dr. Hooper breathed out, and then she grew sheepish, “Well, I was just kind of...exploring, really. I've never been on a starship so big. Which isn't an euphemism! It's- oh my god-”

 

She hid her face in her hands. Khan blinked at her, struggling to keep his composure. If he laughed she'd hide away forever. Finally, she took her hands away, and began waving them about as she floundered to explain herself – or embarrass herself – further. He spared her with a single hand to stop her.

 

“I understand,” he said, “You haven't found the medical bay yet, have you?”

 

“No,” Dr. Hooper frowned, “Why?”

 

“Perhaps you can entertain yourself with preparing it for me. Once I finish this, I'll be transferring the cryotubes there and we can begin awaking the rest of my crew,”

 

“Oh, yes,” her mouth bobbed for a moment, “Right. Yes, I'll- I'll go do that. Wh-where is the med bay, by chance?”  
  


Khan studied her without a hint of malice. She was the most fascinating thing he'd encountered so far in his study of the future. He took his PADD and flicked away from the charts, only to open up a new officer file.

 

“Computer, please direct-” he gave a show of pressing the final key, “ _Lieutenant_ Hooper to her new station in the medical bay and assist in preparation of reawakening the beings currently stored in cargo,”

 

“Yes Commander,” the computer chirped. The starship hummed, and red lights began flickering on.

 

“Follow the ship, it'll show you where to go, Lieutenant,” Khan assured the doctor.

 

“Molly.”  
  


His gaze flicked over to her, “Sorry?”  
  


“That's my first name. I mean- I'm honoured by the promotion, I truly am, it means the world, but you can call me by my first name.”

 

He stared at her for a long moment, then gave a smile, “Alright... Molly.”

 

Seeming at first startled by the action, Molly eventually returned the smile, and disappeared into the starship.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Unfortunately for Khan, he couldn't simply direct the computer to transport the tubes with beaming technology like he had hoped. He knew the alternative was carrying all of the 72 tubes himself. Not that it'd be difficult. Simply time-consuming. But, the laws of time/space refused to apply themselves. Perhaps it was what needed to be done. It seemed, oddly enough, symbolic, as he pondered upon the subject. The king carrying his people to salvation. The angel carrying them up to a better life.

 

Molly was in the med bay, ready to fasten each tube down and create a new client file for each augment. After a few trips back and forth, she opened up the ship's radio channel so they could carry a conversation. She was curious about each person, and he was happy to tell stories about his friends. The time Klaus, the strongest augment of them all, took down, not just a female bear, but her nearly full grown cubs. Darshan, the only augment able to beat Khan at chess. Matilda, ever brave Matilda, who was the first augment to escape from their creators' clutches. He had stories of all the times the augments had proven to be superior, overeager to finally tell them to someone. He was going back to the cargo bay, halfway through the tale of Tiber destroying an entire forest while simply looking for the ball he'd kicked in when Molly quickly interrupted.

 

“Khan, he- oh sorry, I didn't mean to be rude- but Tiber here... he looks _a lot_ like you,” she said, “Is he... is Tiber your son?”  
  


“What?” Khan stopped in his tracks, looking at the next speaker with a crinkle in his brow, “What, no of course he isn't,”

 

“Oh, okay. I just thought with the similarity-”

 

“He's my clone.”

 

“Wh- _what?_ ”

 

“My clone,” Khan continued walking, “That's easy enough to explain. Buyers wanted winged humans that remained young. But we started growing older and older, taking too much space in peoples' homes. So instead of creating new ones, the administrators simply demanded taking the DNA of the older augments and replicating it. That way, each new augment was created, not at zero years old, but with, at least, twenty years of life already taken away. That's how old I was when Tiber was created, anyway.”

 

“Created? You mean you weren't... _born_?”

 

“Biologically impossible,” he explained, “Our wings make it impossible to squeeze thr-”

 

“ _Too_ much information!” Molly cut in.

 

Khan shrugged, “Still. The only born augment was Joaquin and Suzette's, and theirs was the first. The baby had to be cut out of her stomach,”

 

“A C-section? Yes, those are quite normal, and safe,” she tacked on.

 

“Well it was touch and go,” he murmured. He still remembered the days after, hearing the percentages of Suzette's expected continuity of life, the baby's expected continuity of life, Joaquin pacing a rut right into the floor day in and day out. The fights his friend would pick simply because he was stressed. His lack of respect was understandable, seeing as all the attendants were unnerved by the event. He remembered his own immense relief at hearing both the woman and child would survive.

 

Khan opened the cargo bay door, and walked over to pick up the next cryotube. Shifting once, twice, he got his right wing underneath and got the momentum to swing the tube up onto his shoulder. Using arm and wing for support, he started the walk back.

 

“You mentioned,” Molly said, clearly having waited for him to have the next person in his grasp. She must have had a video stream of him as he went back and forth, “Buyers. What do you mean by that?”

 

“Well, in the beginning, augments were a business. Bought, sold, traded. Often as... trinkets of a sort, like ornaments for a room. One of the scientists, when I was a child, she used to call me a 'little cherub'. Which is most likely why the younger ones are of more value. As we got older, we were turned into servants, sold into fighting rings, against other hybrid creatures. Us  _angels_ ,” he said with a slight of disgust in his voice, “weren't the first experiment of appearance alteration. Only a few of us eve remained in the labs we were first created in. Myself included in the latter. I had the... fortune and misfortune to be a favourite of several of the scientists. I was appointed as Subject 001, I was in such high favour,”

 

“You were slaves. Oh, Khan, I'm so sorry,” Molly whispered.

 

He shook his head, repressing the sentiment that arose, “It's the past. It has already been avenged by my previous rule. What I have to worry about now is my revenge on Starfleet.”

 

Molly was quiet at that. He took note of it. Khan had not forgotten what she was, where she had come from. She was a Starfleet officer. But in the eyes of the UFP, who would have retrieved the specifics of the events from the Enterprise, she would be a traitor. So she wasn't the enemy, but Khan still couldn't shake the feeling that she was... _other._ Inferior, yes. That was inevitable with her weak humanity, but she didn't try to excuse that. It wasn't that though. There was still something utterly different that divided her from entirely belonging in his range of trust. Perhaps it was because he'd already spared so much trust, only to have it betrayed. Perhaps it was his own caution that made him wary of the doctor.

 

He'd never felt this way about anyone before.

 

“This one looks older,” Molly remarked suddenly. He glanced up at the sound of her voice, making a noise of confusion.

 

“Jessica McGivney. She looks older than all the other ones I've seen so far,”

 

“Ah. That's because she's not like the others. She's human, much like you. She was one of the scientists from the labs.”

 

“And you _kept_ her?” Molly blurted, disgusted.

 

“She helped us escape. She's one of the reasons why our takeover was so successful. She had worked with the experimental division for long, but her moral compass overruled her loyalty to science, eventually,”

 

Molly harrumphed, to which Khan chuckled.

 

“She's just as much a part of the augments as I am, Molly,” he assured her, “Just as you are,”

 

“Oh,” the doctor said softly, “That's- oh. Thank you?”

 

“You're welcome,” he answered easily. He adjusted the tube on his shoulder, careful that it didn't slide backwards by keeping his wing bent underneath it, “It was a compliment,”

 

“Yeah, I figured that,” Molly replied, “I mean just- it was- I don't know. Took me by surprise. Thank you,”

 

Khan huffed out another laugh and repeated, “You're welcome. Now, could you open the bay doors for me?”

 

The doors slid open for him immediately, and he stepped in. Unlike the Enterprise's circular bay with private quadrants closed off with doors, the USS Vengeance had a long room that stretched along the middle of the back curve of the starship's top disc. Where the rest of the starship was dimly lit by blue, the med bay was vividly alight with bright white. Certainly not to the blinding extent of the Enterprise, but in comparision to the rest of the ship, it took a moment to adjust. Only a few beds were taken up by the cryotubes he'd retrieved so far. Molly hovered over the furthest, typing away at a PADD. She looked up as Khan got close, smiling the kind of smile no one had granted Khan in over three hundred years.

 

“Hello again,” she said warmly, “Just right here,”

 

Molly jerked her thumb over her shoulder, gesturing to the bed behind her. Khan placed the cryotube down and took the moment to stretch his shoulder. He leaned over, curious as to who he'd actually picked up this time.

 

“Tee-jung, Chen,” Molly read out loud, doing the same as him, “Hang on, that sounds familiar...”

 

“Chen Tiejun was one of my fellow rulers when we lived as royalty,” he explained, his hand drifting over her name inscribed in the side, “The entirety of the Pacific Isles was hers. Originally our lands were together, the coasts of Asia carrying right over to Australia. She was to be my queen, us being the most advanced strategical minds of all the augments, but our values were so greatly differed. We were on the cusp of a civil war before we agreed the best thing to do would be to split the empire. It worked, temporarily, but there was still too much tension between us and the Americas.”

 

He gave a small sigh, looking down the row of cryotubes where he knew one of his once-enemy lay sleeping. Stavos was a ruthless, apathetic man, but he had the same intentions Khan had. It took a world war to realize that, and by the time they had settled their differences, their people had turned against them. Turning them from kings to fugitives, hiding away in the depths of space.

 

“Khan?”

 

He flinched in surprise at the touch of Molly's hand over his. He looked at her, but she held nothing but worry on her face.

 

“How about... we wake up Chen first? A strategical mind, could be useful when hiding from... well, everyone,” Molly gave a small giggle.

 

“You think we should?” Khan asked.

 

“Yes,” Molly insisted, squeezing his hand, “Besides. If you're going to be... king of the world, you should have a queen,”

 

There was that feeling at the pit of his stomach again. The distress of not being able to pin her down with complete innate knowledge was getting to his head. Slowly, he nodded.

 

“Alright,” his hand slipped away from hers as he continued to nod, “Alright, we can do that.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Confirm Programming Order 725ob?”

 

Khan gave a sigh, “Confirm.”

 

It was the seventh confirm he'd given and, as far as he had already progressed in reversing the coma he'd placed Chen in, it wasn't the last one he'd be giving that day. It was one thing to defrost a cryotube, another entirely to awaken someone who'd been in a frozen state for hundreds of years. The original ship that the augments had escaped on, Botany Bay, had all the appropriate equipment for a quicker and more efficient awakening. But, that technology was lost, so he had to take the long way around.

 

Luckily, his charting capabilities weren't as rusty as he assumed they were, and the USS Vengeance had made its way across Orion's Belt without a blip of detection from the hidden Starfleet base. If they had, it was only a matter of waiting to see if Starfleet would follow into the depths of unknown space territory.

 

So he took up his time getting started with Chen's awakening. Molly was right – Chen would be the best ally to have at his side if Starfleet did retaliate so early on in Khan's plans. Very little phased the fellow augment, and she'd hardly need time to recuperate from the culture shock before she assessed the new battlefield. There was no denying it, Chen was a _genius_ , and nearly as good a tactical master as he was. Having her get along with Molly would, perhaps, be a challenge, but to be fair Chen wasn't fond with anyone. That hardly mattered. Khan knew many of his friends had outstanding social and emotional intelligence, and would get along just fine with the doctor.

 

Speaking of the doctor, he hadn't seen Molly at all since he got started. The ship had informed him of her location in the med bay when he'd first made his way from his quarters, but he hadn't seen her at all as he worked. It was only when he got to his feet and went over to the vent filters to observe the oxygen intake of Chen's system that he was surprised by Molly's presence.

 

“Molly,” he said, “What're you doing here?”

 

“Oh, this,” Molly gestured to the object in her hands. It was the space mask she'd worn when she'd appeared on the view screen, proclaiming that she'd fulfilled Starfleet's debt to his people.

 

“It was still in the transportation room, I thought I'd just put it away. Can't have a messy starship,” she gave a giggle, one that brought a smile to Khan's lips. He pulled his wings close and stepped in, reaching out for the helmet. He weighed it in his hands.

 

“You beamed aboard the USS Vengeance with it,” he nodded to the locker at the end of the room, “We already have one,”

 

“Yeah, I realized that. I was trying to squeeze it in when you came,” she considered the words she said and, after turning beet red, hastened to add, “Into this room, I mean.”

 

Khan, not understanding the possibility of an innuendo, nodded, “I just need to check-”

 

“Oh, yes! Sorry, go ahead,” she waved him forward and simultaneously tried to leave, not realizing there wasn't enough room until she bumped into his wing. She held up a hand against the ruffle of feathers her nose hit, “Oh, sorry-”

 

“Here-” he stepped out of the room, leaving room to let her walk past. She followed, one hand still on his wing.

 

“Right, thank you,”

 

He was already turning to step into the room, when there was a sharp pinch in his wing. He hissed in pain and twisted around.

 

“Oh, I'm sorry! It must have been loose, I didn't mean to-”

 

Molly held one, stark white secondary feather between her fingers. Stuttering a moment, she finally held it out to him, as if he could take it and put it back into place. Realizing it was an accident, he waved an airy hand.

 

“It's fine. Keep it.”

 

“But-”

 

“Keep it.”

 

She smiled sheepishly, “Well... alright. If that's what you think,”

 

 

* * *

 

 

She'd lost track of the time. She'd tried to count the minutes, the seconds, but with no sun or clock to track, she became a slave to ignorance. The ship materialized food for her, but she couldn't eat it. She had a bed, but there was no way to get comfortable. She was doomed, and alone, wasting away to nothing. She just wished it would happen already, so she wouldn't have to face those blank expressions she saw every time she closed her eyes. So she wouldn't have to feel the pain in her leg. Her doctorate hadn't been in medicine, but she knew it wasn't healing right. The bone was going crooked, driving itself deeper and deeper into her muscle. Sometimes she couldn't breathe because the pain just overwhelmed her too much.

 

But she couldn't die.

 

 _He_ wouldn't let her.

 

He used to visit every day, right around the time the ship would give her the one meal of the day. He'd stand with that victorious look in his eyes, waiting until she leaned over and took whatever food it was with her teeth and dug in like an animal. Just to rub it in. _He taunted for days,_ that was what he said. Yet, she had been convinced he would keep at her for weeks, months, maybe even years, just to prove a point. Just to say _I told you so._ But soon enough, even his cruel visits stopped. She was alone in the prison her father had made for her, guarded by the monster her father had made for himself.

 

She was sitting, straining her arms against the straps that had them pinned to her sides. They were folded up, her hands cupping her shoulders. As hard as she tried, no matter what emergency codes she attempted out loud, the straps would not unlock. _He_ had come in, revealing his true form, wings open and everything, and had her locked in the restraints within a minute. She had struggled, of course she had, but even her advanced fight training couldn't defeat an augment.

 

As she struggled, she stared at the door across the room from her glass well cell. Maybe if she focused all her willpower, it would open. Maybe, suddenly, the glass would slide into the floor, or the ceiling, and she'd be free. She'd be able to find an escape pod, find her groundings and just disappear.

 

If she had the energy for it, she would have jumped in surprise when the door did open. At first, she tensed, waiting for him to appear, but she was humbled by the appearance of Dr. Molly Hooper.

 

The xenobiologist looked just as surprised to see her as she was to see her.

 

“Dr. Marcus?” she asked.

 

“I think Carol will do,” she said. Her voice cracked, hoarse from lack of use. She shifted slightly, trying to find an angle at which her arms wouldn't protest constantly.

 

Dr. Hooper tilted her head, and stepped forward. The door slid shut behind her, but she didn't seem afraid of being trapped.

 

“I thought you were dead,” Dr. Hooper said slowly.

 

“I don't blame you. He killed the others. Scotty, Kirk,” Carol's voice cracked again, and she shook her head to clear her eyes of their mistiness. She'd cried enough already in this cell, she refused to spend any more tears, “The rest of the Vengeance's crew... the admiral...”

 

“Your father, Admiral Marcus,” Dr. Hooper clarified, coming closer, “Yes, skull crushed and everything,”

 

Carol moved instinctively, hiding her sudden sob in her shoulder. She remembered it all too clearly.

 

“God, it was awful, so so awful,” she gasped out.

 

Dr. Hooper didn't react, probably still numb from all of it. From all she had seen. Carol couldn't imagine what the doctor had been through. If Carol's situation had been awful enough, she couldn't imagine what it would be like pretending to align herself with the evil man.

 

“Why did he spare you?” Dr. Hooper wondered.

 

“Hostage,” Carol spat out, and gave an uneasy laugh, “That's what he said. If Starfleet tried to follow, he'd use me, he could use the admiral's daughter as a hostage. But now that you're here, he won't get the chance,”

 

“No, you're right. We're too far past Orion,” the xenobiologist said in agreement, although it sounded more like a dismissive tone.

 

“Orion? Orion's Belt? Christ,” Carol racked her brain for a solution, and brightened, “There's a base there, we can escape.”  
  


“Yes, we can,” Dr. Hooper said, moving towards the panel that Carol knew was right beside her cell. Carol twisted herself so she was on her knees, and pushed into a standing position.

 

“We'll get there, we'll try and make contact with Commander Spock,” Carol said, leaning forwards to see how Molly was faring.

 

“How?” Dr. Hooper asked.

 

“He knows you're on this ship, right? Have you managed to contact him already?”

 

“No.”

 

Carol opened her mouth to reply immediately, but then figured. No, of course she wouldn't be able to. _Khan_ surely would be monitoring Dr. Hooper's every move, she had to be careful. They just had to hope that the Enterprise was tailing the USS Vengeance, or at the very least, Starfleet still had contact with the base in Orion's Belt.

 

“Right. Okay, hurry, we don't know how long we have until Khan realizes you're here,”

 

“He doesn't care, he's waking up his crew,” Dr. Hooper sneered the last word, sounding as disgusted as Carol felt. But it wasn't just that. Fear clung to her heart at the sound of it. Khan was deadly enough, but others like him would devastate the galaxy.

 

“It doesn't matter, as long as he realized you didn't trick him-”

 

“Sorry?” Dr. Hooper stopped what she was doing with the panel and glanced up at Carol.

 

Baffled, the weapons specialist gave a bit of a laugh, “What you and Spock did on the Enterprise, making it look like they all died.”

 

“Oh! That,” Dr. Hooper smiled sheepishly, “Sorry, the starship's getting to you, I did actually do that.”

 

“I'm-” Carol blinked, shaking her head, “I'm sorry?”

 

“Everyone did,” Dr. Hooper said calmly, “die on the Enterprise, that is. Only I survived,”

 

Everything inside Carol went cold.

 

“H-How, why? _Why?_ For him?” Carol's fingers dug against her shoulders, and shook her head, “No, no you don't realize, don't realize what you're doing! He's not good, he's not in the wrong here, he's a murderer, Dr. Hooper. Dr. Hooper, he's a monster. He's- he's evil _._ ”

 

Dr. Hooper tilted her head again, “Evil people can do good things. Good people can do evil things. It's almost as if you have the idea of a villian _the wrong way around.”_

 

“Who are you?” Carol demanded to know. No, no fucking way this was the Dr. Hooper she first met on the Enterprise. The ensign who was sweethearted and timid and not... what this was.

 

“Dr. Molly Hooper, as I've always been. I just forgot what I wanted for a little bit there. But now you're getting it wrong again. You think because I'm your antagonist, I'm a different person now. Possessed by a demon, right from the pits of hell. But Carol, I am a good girl,”

 

The woman reached out, tapping on the panel again. The cell seemed to make a wheezing noise, and Carol looked around wildly as white steam filtered into her prison. Her lungs seemed to cry out at the feel of the air in them, the equivalent pouring acid down her throat. _I'm not going to die,_ her brain insisted, and something told her she was telling herself the truth. Death would be far too merciful. Desperate and frightened, she looked back at the monster that guarded her.

 

Dr. Hooper smiled sweetly, “And good girls go to heaven.”

 


	3. Lover

_“The administrators will be so proud to see you,”_

 

_Subject 001 sat up, pleased by the praise. Immediately, Dr. McGivney made a hushing noise, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder to push him back down._

 

_“Easy. Grooming wings isn't easy,” she explained. The scientist gave a small laugh and leaned forward, “Especially after you rolled around in the mud with them. Stop squirming,”_

 

_“It wasn't mud, it was dirt,” the boy cut in, obediently relaxing his back muscles as Dr. McGivney's nimble fingers began to run down the edge of his wing, right along the tertials._

 

_“Still. It's a bother,”_

 

_The boy winced at the prick of a loose feather falling off._

 

_“Dr. Soong didn't stop me from playing in the dirt,”_

 

_“Well then,” Her hands were pulling harder at his feathers as she stroked them clean of filth. Subject 001 did his best not to whine, “I'll have to talk to Dr. Soong about that. But you should know how to act appropriately, you know better than his inferior mind.”_

 

_Her fingers pinched, and he couldn't help the yelp that escaped. When he twisted to look at the scientist, she placed her hands on his shoulders and cooed._

 

_“Hush. It wouldn't hurt so much if you hadn't done this to yourself,”  
_

_“I'm sorry,” he cringed, arching his back as Dr. McGivney grabbed at his feathers, more falling off than more being cleaned._

 

_“I'm sorry!” he cried out, letting out a shout when her hand found a grip and pulled the handful right out of his back. He finally twisted around, looking to demand for answers, but the scientist had disappeared into an abyss of darkness. Subject 001's eyes widened in horror, and he called out for the doctor, but she didn't answer._

 

_Instead, the blackness surged forward and grabbed at the base of his wings. He howled as they were ripped from his back._

 

* * *

 

 

“Do you actually own a shirt?”

 

The corner of Khan's lip quirked up. He didn't bother looking up from the screen when he asked, “Why? Does my lack of one bother you?”

 

“It's certainly distracting,” Molly said, any bashful nature she had about her attraction to him now gone. It'd been a week since Dr. Hooper had been beamed aboard the USS Vengeance, and they'd both been blatantly flirting in a way Khan hadn't bothered with since before he was an emperor. The days between his escape from the labs and his first day of rule had been months of secretry, near singlehandedly creating allies with Earth's underworld of criminals. Flirting then had been flippant, relaxed and Khan, having never experienced relaxation ever in his life before, had of course indulged himself to the playful interactions.

 

Molly was a timid sort, still coming out of her shell. He would've already taken their relationship to the next level, if not for the pressing, doubtless assumption he had that she would make the first move when she was ready. Perhaps it was the work, or perhaps it was his intimidating nature _(or perhaps the fact that he was a mass murderer, but so far she'd shown no qualms with that)._ Until such a time when they could _truly_ indulge in one another, he distracted himself with awakening Chen. Maybe she was it. Molly was human, and humans had a more monogamous mindset. She'd be interested in investing in a genuine emotional connection, and maybe recognized he was intent on mating with Chen.

 

Still, it was best to let Molly take the step first. He was content to keep her by his side, regardless of their growth of affection, as long as affection was all that separated them.

 

He continued his work on the cryotube, slowly raising the temperature so Chen wouldn't accidently melt, “None of the Starfleet uniforms on board fit, not unless I wanted to restrict my limbs again,”

 

“Is that what you consider them? Limbs? Your wings, I mean,” Molly nodded to the pair. He'd kept them relaxed the entire time as they worked, drooping so low that they dragged across the floor.

 

“Why not? My arms are limbs, my legs are limbs,” he flicked the aula of his right wing up in a shrug, “Why not my wings?”

 

“I just figure, wings are wings. Aside from flying, that is. But you're human, aside from the advanced strength and speed and endurance and stamina and... well, you know what I mean. Your body caters to that but it doesn't... cater to flying. There's not much else you can do with it,”

 

Khan tapped his side once with two fingers, just underneath his rib, “Second pectoral muscle. It was more pronounced when we were children. The augments, I mean. But as we get older, doesn't look anything more than the average abdomen muscle. It allows room for extra ribs and more lung space. More air inside me, I'm lighter than I should be at this height,”

 

“Fascinating,” Molly breathed, “So you can-”

 

“Fly? Yes. I just haven't been able to in a very long time. What with my cage from Admiral Marcus, and now trapped in this starship,” Khan gave another shrug, although the action was more stiff as he tapped out a demand for an chemical intake analysis for Chen.

 

“Couldn't you try the cargo bay? Plenty of room there,” Molly giggled, receiving his prompt on her own PADD and sending the request to the ship's computer before going back to her own filing.

 

“Don't be obtuse,” he scolded her lightly, “No, when I fly, it'll be done right. Nothing holding me back,”

 

Molly balanced the edge of her PADD against Chen's cryotube, and leaned her crossed arms against it. She dipped her head to get a better look at him, one strand of hair falling forwards from her ponytail. He could see the worry in her eyes over his suddenly somber tone. Not wishing to upset her, he brightened up.

 

“Besides, saying you can _only fly_ with wings is like saying you can only walk with legs, or only...” he fell short of an idea of what to do with his arms.

 

Molly gave a giggle, “Reach for high places with your arms?”

 

“No,” Khan said again, a smile touching his lips, “Not just high places.”

 

With that said, he reached across the cryotube and tucked her hair back behind her ear.

 

“Just within my reach,” he murmured.

 

* * *

 

 

_**SYSTEM FAILURE. SYSTEM FAILURE. PROGRAMMING ORDER 725OB DEMANDS CAPTAIN SUPERVISION. SYSTEM FAILURE. SYSTEM FAILURE. PROGRAMMING ORDER 725OB DEMANDS CAPTAIN SUPERVISION.** _

 

The med bay doors weren't opening for Khan. His hands were shaking too hard, he couldn't see the emergency access panel, but he couldn't tear his eyes away from the view window. He was saying something, but his ears were ringing, like he'd just been sitting next to an overworked warp core. Like he'd been hit in the head by a superior being. Like... like... the floor had just given out on him.

 

A pair of slender hands covered his. Molly was shouting. He could recognize her inflection through the static, but he couldn't make out words. He could hardly process words in his own head, just commands. As if he was the ship taking orders and registering them without emotion, without life.

 

Life. Oh god.

 

The doors slid open, and he numbly stepped in. He felt hands on his back, right over where his feathers met skin. He realized he felt far too cold. That was because the temperature in starships were programmed to monitor passengers aboard starships and adjust to their body heat.

 

Chen had boiled to death.

 

He felt his mouth moving, forming the same word over and over but, he couldn't hear it. He could barely feel his feet moving across the floor, and yet he approached the corpse. They hadn't even taken her out of the cryotube, even if she had awoken when her body hit the right temperature she- couldn't have escaped.

 

He'd done this. He'd made the order to rise the temperature. He'd turned it off when he left-

 

Still shaking, he stumbled over to the monitor screen. The ON button blinked red at him.

 

No. No he hadn't turned it off.

 

He couldn't feel anything. The only way he knew he'd fallen to his knees was because his vision slipped away from the screen, staring blankly at the wall, the column that held up the monitor. He'd done this. He brought his people here, he was supposed to protect them. But instead, he was their executioner.

 

“I'm so sorry.”

 

He blinked sharply, gasping through the narrowness of his throat. Molly's hands were touching his heaving chest, her arms locked around his shoulders, her knees tucked underneath his wings, squeezing against his hips, her head nestled against the back of his neck.

 

“I'm so sorry.”

 

He must have reached up for her, touching her arms with his fingers, because he felt the fabric of her dress. His hands slowly enveloped her wrists, but he wasn't pushing her away. He tightened her grip on him, and pulled his legs up to trap her hands there. Slowly, his wings shifted forwards to hide his face, his legs, as if he could just disappear forever from this awful, awful land with all its cruelty and harshness.

 

Khan brought them here. Khan brought his people straight to their death.

 

He pushed his face against his kneecaps and wept.

 

* * *

 

 

“Khan?”

 

Molly had been in the captain's quarters only once, that first day when she had taken off the straps keeping Khan's wings folded. She'd been keeping to herself in the residential areas. He'd given her privacy there, seeing as she didn't intrude in his own private quarters. But she must have seen it as necessary. It had to be, he hadn't seen her in two days. He hadn't left the room at all. The most he'd done was move across the room, from his bed to the wide porthole that gave him the view of space, an endless reel of stars drifting.

 

“I-I brought you some food,” Molly tried again, The ship says your nutrition intake wasn't up to par-”

 

“I'm fine,” he said simply. Something stirred with him, reminding him that he ought to be ashamed of himself for succumbing to a state of being so inferior as _simple._ He was too weak. He couldn't even hide behind the excuse of recovering from a long and futile battle. He was, simply, too weak.

 

Molly inched closer, as if in his grief he was suddenly dangerous. She should have feared him more when he was exuberant, when he had something racing through his veins. But ever since seeing Chen... dead and peeling and bubbling and _dead and dead and dead..._

 

That small little hand touched his wrist, and Molly murmured to him, either asking if he was alright or assuring him that he was. He couldn't tell the difference. His social intelligence was breaking down from the lack of it. Soon there'd be no reason for it. There was already no one to see, no one to talk to, Chen was dead, he failed to program the correct algorithm, they were all dead in their frozen tombs...

 

“You can't keep torturing yourself,” Molly murmured. She set the tray of food aside, and sat beside him.

 

“You won't do it. There's no one else to do it,” he shook his head. Molly, in a brave moment, reached out and took his chin.

 

“No. You don't need... _punishment._ That's not right.”

 

“Of course it is,” he said numbly. He did something wrong, he killed Chen, he wouldn't be able to bring back his crew, of course he needed it. How else could he be redeemed?

 

Molly shook her head fervently, “That's _not right._ You didn't do this. You don't deserve to do this to yourself. It was a glitch in the system, that's not on you.”

 

“I created the system. Molly, I created the system. I made the command to raise the temperature. I thought I had freed us from our cages, but I only gave them an eternity of entrapment.”

 

“Khan, no.” He tried to cut her off, but Molly went on, “You saved your people-!”

 

He shoved her hand away, “I did this. Chen and I were supposed to take back our rule together. That was the plan. Now there's nothing.”

 

Molly sighed, and reached out for the tray again, “Please, let's try to eat something-”

 

“No!”

 

Khan's wing struck out, pushing her away harshly. The tray clattered on the ground, and Molly immediately drew her hand back to herself, cradling her wrist against her chest. The flash of pain on her face made the sudden rise of fury dissipate inside Khan. He sighed, and leaned forwards to rest his elbows on his knees.

 

After running his hand through his hair, he murmured, “Maybe the humans were right about something. I am a monster. I trapped the people I'd hoped to free. Maybe... maybe we were always supposed to be in cages,”

 

Molly didn't reply for a long time. She didn't move for a long time. When her voice finally came out, it was soft, barely heard over the hum of the starship.

 

“A glitch in the system isn't your fault. You were meant to help people, Khan, I know it. And you doubt it now, but you will help. You will save your people, and you will bring them to their paradise. You've killed, yes, only because those people stand in your way. And there's nothing wrong with that.”

 

“There's nothing wrong with that,” he repeated numbly.

 

Her hand rubbed against his back, before daring to skirt along the edge of his left wing. Her hand curled against the tip of it like it belonged right there.

 

“You'll bring us all to the light,” she murmured, right against his ear. Her free hand touched his cheek, slowly tilting his face so he could meet her gaze.

 

Slowly, trying each word carefully, he repeated, “I'll bring us to the light,”

 

“That's it,” Molly whispered, her breath tangling with his in the small space between their lips, “And you _will_ have a queen, my angel.”

 

Khan didn't dare breathe in the silence that stretched on. He wouldn't dare, until Molly granted him permission. He wouldn't dare move until she told him to.

 

Knowing she was in control and clearly in no rush, Molly's hand guided his mouth to hers, and he moaned in relief. Merciful, merciful Molly. His eyes slipped shut, and his hands moved to bracket her face. Molly's hands slipped away from their previous places, curling against his stomach and slipping up until her palms found his chest. As his teeth caught on her lip, his hands brushed back, one fastening in her hair while the other slid down her arm, her side, right to her hip, where he dragged her closer. Her knee found the bed, and she hiked up, resting the other against his opposite thigh. Feeling her dress hike up, his hand slipped further and wasted no time in pushing it up over her waist.

 

Molly gasped, her head tilting back as his hand gripped her arse. He wasted no time in trailing his mouth eagerly against her pale little neck, sucking a bruise into her collarbone. He tilted forwards, his hips rocking up, but Molly pushed down on his shoulder. His back hit against the window of the porthole, his wing awkwardly bent behind him. When he grunted out a noise of discomfort, she hushed him with her mouth as her fingers tugged his zipper down, pushing open his trousers. He groaned out, his hands digging against her shoulders as he pulled her closer. Molly was fully seated in his lap, giving little gasps as his hands moved back to her arse, rocking her hips forwards into his.

 

Finally too impatient, he took the bottom of her dress and pulled it up, exposing her black bra and panties. Flinging the clothing aside, he held her close as he decorated her neck, chest, shoulders, jawline, anywhere he could reach with kisses and bruises. Molly mewled hopelessly, one hand finding its way into his hair as she held his head close to her. The other raked up his wing, ruffling the feathers until she finally found a grip on the edge of it.

 

“This is perfect,” she gasped out, “This is _perfect_.”

 

“Not yet,” Khan growled, “It's not enough,”

 

That being said, he hooked his arms underneath her legs, and scooped her into his arms. Molly gasped again, only for the sound to be swallowed as his mouth found hers again. She cupped his face, touching his cheeks as if he were the fragile one. God, she really didn't know how small she was in comparison to him. She really didn't know how easily he could break her, how badly he wanted to fucking _ruin_ her in that moment. He wanted her marked in such a way that neither of them could go back. He wanted her as ruined as he was, so she wouldn't have anyone else but him. It'd be the two of them forever in their brokenness and it would be _alright_ because they would have one another to feel complete.

 

He stood, slowly making his way across the room until he found the bed. He laid her down without breaking the kiss, quickly covering her small body with his. As they laid kiss after kiss upon the other's lips, they moved eagerly closer. Molly's feet were pushing her boots off, and his hands kept drifting down to push his trousers down. Unable to remove their clothing without seperating, Khan finally rolled over onto his back beside her, pushing down his trousers and pants. Molly got her panties down, and kicked off her boots. Before Khan could make the first move, Molly pulled herself over him, and leaned down for a kiss. He gave a drawn out moan, stuttering over the sound as her wetness brushed against his already aching cock. He could reach a hand down and adjust himself and he'd be inside her, and he'd _ruin_ her. He barely had time to process the moment, before Molly's mouth was over his, stealing away whatever noise he could make. Her hands came down, finding balance against his wings. Her fingers instinctively curled against the feathers, sending a streak of pleasure from the tips to his chest, straight down to his pelvis. He bucked up, causing them both to groan at the feeling of him brushing against her entrance.

 

Khan reached around, encircling his arms around her. He was ready to surge him, to sit up and just take Molly, when she sat up herself, pushing him down with her hands on his chest.

 

“Molly-” he started, but her hips rocking against his had him shutting up fast. She shuffled forwards, her knees leaning against his wings as she took a hold of his hair.

 

“Be a good little bird, won't you?” she sighed, her fingers carding his hair back so she could find a good grip. Obediently, he leaned up, taking her clit with his mouth. The way her fingers tightened their grip encouraged him to slide his tongue flat against her entrance, teasing intrusion.

 

Khan slowly worked her with his tongue, making promises and just as swiftly breaking them. His wings ached, trying to resist the urge to move up and hold her against him. But she had him pinned down, and his cock ached for the luxury his lips were granted. But if Molly's reaction to his tongue was anything, she was going to _lose her mind_ over his prick.

 

Eager to satisfy her, he brought one hand up, sliding along her thigh for a moment before he slipped one finger underneath his tongue. It slid into her easily, and caused her to cry out suddenly.

 

“Oh my god, oh my-!” she cried out again, her legs shaking as he worked it in and out. She came almost immediately, rocking into his mouth helplessly. He steadied her over him with her hips as she fell forwards on her hands, catching herself on the bed over his head.

 

He wiggled out from underneath her, coaxing her to remove her knees from his wings with a bit of shuffling. They ached, but god was it ever a good ache. He got to his feet, and watched as Molly laid down and rolled onto her back. As if ashamed, she kept her knees together, and her hands interlocked against her belly.

 

That would not do.

 

Taking her knees and pushing them apart, he took his place over her again, working up from her curls to her collarbone, tugging at the bra that had remained on. Realizing his impatience, Molly arched her back and found the clasp. The straps snapped as Khan ripped it off her, but Molly couldn't make the time to protest as he cupped one breast and laid his mouth over the nipple. She gasped, leaning into his touch as his tongue flicked across it. At first, he was intent on moving across to her other breast and treating it with equal reverence, but her legs locked around his hips and any foreplay went out the window.

 

Khan surged forwards and claimed her mouth. His hand closing around her cheek, his thumb lined against her jaw, pushing their faces together until such a time _he_ allowed them to part.

 

“Inside me, just get inside me,” she begged as if she was in absolute misery without what she wanted. He growled hungrily at the sound, and invaded her mouth once more with his tongue. His free hand wrapped around his cock, pumped twice for good measure, and pushed himself inside of her.

 

Molly started cursing, in such a way he'd never heard from her before. She wiggled desperately, but she was such a small little thing. Even in his blind ecstasy he could see that. He held her hips down, and eased his way in.

 

“How is it?” he asked, wanting her voice coaxing him to climax. That was how he wanted it, holding her hips down and her voice telling him every fucking detail. That was how he'd come.

 

“If you don't start moving I swear to-” Molly gasped. Her hand, which was originally moving to grab his shoulder, jerked back against the sheets, finding purchase in a handful. Khan had eased back just slightly, and was already pushing back in further. He got himself fully seated, and began rolling back and forth in the small little area. Such a tight little thing, Molly was.

 

He adjusted his legs, pushing his knees underneath her thighs so her legs spread out more. When he pushed in again, the pressure was so incredible that he couldn't resist starting a faster rhythm. Molly moaned, and her hand darted forwards to grab his face, pulling him in for a bruising kiss he'd never expected from such a small woman.

 

“Small little thing, you are,” he muttered, slowly repeating with a delibrate thrust between each of his words, “Small. Little. Thing,”

 

“God I'm going to ruin you,” Molly sighed. The words had Khan damning the idea of _taking it easy_ , and he picked up his pace, slamming into her again and again. She cried out with each thrust, small little “oh!”s that had him kissing her again, his mouth finding her neck and making a nice bruise. Khan's hands had her hips, and he could feel the eager twitch she had to take him, could feel it in the way her legs pushed him down with each thrust.

 

He could feel her getting close, the shaking in her legs, the grip in his hair and at the edge of his right wing. He was reaching down to rub her clit when she murmured something in his ear.

 

“Take me there, oh take me there, I'm nearly- I'm nearly-”

 

“Tell me, tell me how it feels,” he growled. That was how he wanted to come. Molly telling him every fucking detail.

 

“O-oh, Khan, it's-” she cut herself off with a loud moan, “This is _perfect._ ”

 

She tightened around him, and that was enough to push him over the edge. He emptied himself inside her, thrusting shallowly until he was spent. Finally exhausted, he let his wings fall back and he rolled to the side of Molly. His arm was open for her, and after catching her breath, she let herself be pulled to his side.

 

Shakily, she raised a hand and touched his cheek. When she spoke, her voice was filled with pride.

 

“My angel,”

 

He turned his head to look at her, that unknown feeling tugging inside of his chest. He looked at her and just knew. His free hand moved to her hip, pulling her close.

 

“My queen,” he whispered as his mouth found hers.

 

* * *

 

 

They were back in the med bay, working through Khan's programming bit by bit. Khan at first had been, understandably, uncomfortable with stepping into the lab again. But once Molly explained she'd cleaned away Chen's presence from the room, he reluctantly agreed. Soon, after convincing from the doctor, he agreed to try and awaken another one of his seventy-two sleeping.

 

Khan decided on Dr. Jessica McGivney, the human doctor he'd told stories to Molly about.

 

“She's the doctor that helped you escape the labs,”

 

“Almost at her own cost, yes,” Khan murmured, hooking up the cryotube to the ship's computer. Molly held out the monitor cable for him to take when he was ready, “At first she wasn't going to make it out, that wasn't part of the plan. My sentiment found the better of me and I went back. The woman did practically raise me,”

 

“So she's like a mother to you,”

 

Khan grunted in exertion, and took the second cable from her, “You keep saying that word,”

 

“What, _mother?_ You- you don't know what a mother is?” Molly asked, baffled.

 

“No. Unfortunately, as hard as I try, my 23rd century understanding still isn't entirely up to speed,”

 

“A mother isn't 23rd century, mothers have been around- well, forever,”

 

Khan smiled, thinking about his own longevity “Now that I doubt.”

 

“A mother is the woman who raised you. Who gave birth to you, who- gave you love and support.”

 

“In that latter respect, you'd be my mother,” Khan said, trying to get what the doctor was trying to explain.

 

Molly immediately wrinkled her nose at the thought. He raised an eyebrow at the expression.

 

“No?”

 

 _“No,”_ she said, sounding rather offput by the idea, “No, I am most definitely not your mum.”

 

“Well, I suppose Dr. McGivney is my mother, then,” Khan finally concluded. He gave a huff, having finished his work with the tube. He got to his feet, holding his wing out so he could brush the dirt off, “I've known her for as long as I can remember, and she has been very kind to me,”

 

Molly smiled, wrapping her arms around herself, “That's nice to hear. You've said so many awful things about what happened to you as a kid, but that's- I'm happy there was something good about it.”

 

Khan smiled, brushing her hair back behind her ear for her. A sudden memory catching his attention, he laughed, “I-I remember one day, she'd come in from Prague. The whole week I was whining for her, you know, _'I want McGivney'_ , and when she found out, she had this machine she'd brought with her from his conference. She'd gotten it just for me, and there were all these wires,” he pressed his fingers against her arm where he remembered their placement, “Right down my arms, right on my temples. And machine started, I felt this sensation unlike any- what's the matter?”

 

Molly had gone very, very cold under his touch.

 

“Sounds like the electric chair to me,” she said, sounding hollow.

 

“It didn't hurt me-”

 

“It was created for that intent, Khan,” she explained. She took his hands and peeled them away, “Not like a mother, Khan.”

 

She turned her head away, looking at McGivney's cryotube. Confused, Khan wasn't able to provide a reply. Finally, unable to bear the silence, Molly left.

 

* * *

 

 

He found her in their quarters, curled up as if she was already asleep. But when he slipped in beside her, touching her hip, she rolled back to face him. He cautiously slid closer, his arm weaving itself around her as his wing covered them both.

 

“I didn't mean to upset you,” he murmured.

 

“I'm not, I'm just...” she sighed, “You've been through so much. You don't even recognize cruelty when you see it, not even when it's right underneath your nose,”

 

“That's what I have you for,” he grumbled as if it was obvious. He shuffled his face against hers, trying to coax her from the pillow, “You see the things I don't,”

 

Molly sighed again, and finally lifted her head to kiss him. Within moments, he could sense all was forgiven, as her mouth opened with his and their soft touches hardened into strong grips on one another's flesh. He recognized her quiet sighs as desperation, and was quick to provide satisfaction. They fumbled and pulled at their clothing, his trousers and pants pushed down to his thighs, her dress tucked above her waist and her panties caught at her ankle. Hardly enough for him. He wanted the feel of her skin against his, the touch of her chest heaving for air underneath his. But Molly was ready, already reaching down to take his prick in hand. He cursed quietly, burying his face into her neck as she stroked him.

 

“Molly,” he keened, toes curling in anticipation.

 

“Easy does it,” she murmured in reply, her lips curving up. Khan gave a playful growl at the sight, and, taking her by the hair, yanked her forwards for a kiss. She gave a squeal of surprise, which quickly subsided into a moan. Her hand worked up and down his shaft faster, tightening around the head before stroking back down.

 

“God I want in you,” he rumbled, lowering his mouth to her collarbone. It was still blossoming red from their first night.

 

Molly gave a weary giggle, “God isn't here,”

 

Alarmed by her choice of words, Khan hesitated, his mouth freezing against her pulse. But Molly didn't give any sign of soberness. He could feel her smiling lazily against his temple, her free hand carding easily through her feathers. It must have been an intrusive thought, he decided, she probably didn't even realize she'd said it. Khan laid a gentle kiss against the bruise he'd left before, and worked up the column of her neck to her chin.

 

Molly, done with teasing, adjusted her hips, one leg hiking over his waist. He could feel her knee bump against his wing. With her hand adjusting him and his hips rocking forward, Khan slid into her easily. He groaned, his head falling back. Molly took the opportunity to kiss down his neck, down his chest finding a spot against his sternum to drag her teeth.

 

With a growl, he pumped into her harder, the slap of flesh hitting flesh echoing in the room. Molly gasped. Her nails dug into his shoulder, trying to relax her fingers and finding herself incapable. She hiked her leg up further and found the bed with her foot, giving herself leverage to rock into his rhythm. When he tried to mimic her, his leg caught on his trousers. He kicked at them impatiently, pushing them down far enough with his feet to bring his knee up.

 

Molly giggled at his clumsy effort, but was soon caught up in the sensation the new angle gave them both. Khan's hands raked across her arse, her back, finding her shoulder and fastening himself to her. She cried out, clinging to his sides.

 

“Perfect yet?” he muttered, remembering her words from before.

 

“Almost, _almost,_ I- oh my god,” she said breathlessly. The leg that kept her bouncing shook against his waist, and she slipped, her knee falling forwards. The sudden shift had her pushing him back, straddling him fully. He quickly took her by the hip so she wouldn't fall, but she was too far gone to notice. She orgasmed around his cock, her muscles fluttering. His toes curled, his wings folded and unfolded, and he couldn't resist finishing himself off. He held her up and fucked into her until he followed after her, coming in quick spurts.

 

His erection flagged down and they both took a moment catching their breath. Molly was still shaking, so he drew her down, pulling her to his chest. He peeled her dress away with her quiet cooperation, and tossed it aside, letting her skin cool against his bare chest. When their racing hearts settled and the air grew cold once more, Khan finally spoke.

 

“I've experienced many things Molly, and despite what you believe, I do know cruelty. I spent a year under Marcus' command, and it was crueler than you can possibly imagine. I've done monstrous things of my own free will, I will not deny, but that was for my crew. But the things I've had to do under his thumb... it's convinced me that humans have created their own demons. I'll make them pay, Molly. No matter what it does to me, no matter what kind of creature it makes me, I'll make them pay for what they've done to my world,”

 

Molly exhaled slowly, and kissed his chest, “You know I'm not like them, right?”

 

“Of course. I've told you, you're not human in my eyes. You are superior,” he said.

 

She sighed, and rested her cheek against his heart. Her hand reached out, tracing invisible patterns into his feathers. The silence eased them into a drowsiness, ready to take them straight to sleep. Khan rolled them both to the side, nestling Molly against his wing while he kicked his trousers off, letting them tumble off the bed. He shuffled close to Molly, wrapping her in his arms. Her voice was muffled when she spoke again, but he heard clearly.

 

“I'd do the same, you know. I'll do whatever it takes, whatever it takes to protect you,”

 

Khan's arms shifted against her small frame, and he smiled at her courage. His eyes drifting shut, he pressed his mouth against her temple.

 

* * *

 

 

The bed was empty when Khan awoke. Molly's dress and boots were gone, although he could feel the steam of a shower. She must've just left then. He rolled onto his stomach, propping his elbow so he could unfurl his wing from the position he'd fallen asleep in. Stretching away the sleep, he reached out and grabbed Molly's PADD from the bedside table, it being the only one. He must have left his on the bridge, or in the med bay. He typed his captain override to access the files Molly couldn't get to with her lieutenant permissions, and prompted the ship to show him the doctor's location.

 

“Medical bay,” the computer chirped. Hm. She must've been getting a head start in the cryostatis degeneration for Dr. McGivney. He leaned over the bed, found his trousers, and started to pull them on so he could join her.

 

The trip from the captain's quarters to the med bay was fast enough, but it was only when he reached the doors that the PADD in his hands beeped.

 

_**SYSTEM FAILURE. SYSTEM FAILURE. PROGRAMMING ORDER 725OB DEMANDS CAPTAIN SUPERVISION.** _

 

“No!” he cried out, slamming his hand against the access panel. The doors slid open, and he stumbled in – only to stop at the sight before him.

 

Molly was dripping from the shoulders down with blood. In one hand, a broken syringe, the glass edge hard to distinguish with the mess oozing off it. In the other, a mangled piece of heart. Even with the mess, he had to assume it was, because a long artery was still attaching it to Dr. McGivney's corpse, open and bloody before the doctor.

 

Molly looked up as he entered, her mouth bobbing for a moment before closing. When she tried to move, stepping forwards, the artery snapped, causing Khan to flinch. He was going to be sick. He was going to be sick and make even more of a mess.

 

“How- why-” he shook his head, _“Why?”_

 

“I had to,” Molly's voice was soft, not an ounce of disgust in her eyes.

 

That unknown feeling that had made a home in Khan's chest reared its ugly head, and he realized it had never been love like he assumed. It was his gut instinct, telling him that he was looking at something dangerous and fatal and _run away, run away as fast as you can._

 

“You- you did- _this._ Why? _Why,_ Molly?”  
  


“She was going to hurt you again. They were going to hurt you again,”

 

“What the fuck do you mean by _they?”_

 

Molly froze, her eyes going wide. She gasped quietly, and began to step forwards again, “I had to, I _had_ to.”  
  


“You killed Chen too,” Khan said slowly. The pieces of the puzzle clicked together bit by bit, “You killed Chen, and you killed McGivney now too,”

 

“And the Enterprise. Because they would _get in the way_ , Khan. Of us, finally going to the light,”

 

Khan shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut. He tried to force the memory away, but it came unbidden. Dr. Soong and his shouting, Dr. Soong and his fingers pinching his chin, Dr. Soong and his words.

 

_“You got your wings so you can carry me to the light. So you can carry us all to the paradise we deserve. You're stronger than any human, why?”_

 

_“So I can carry you-”_

 

_“And?”  
_

_“And kill anyone who stands in our way.”_

 

“You're one of the scientists. You have to be, from the labs,” Khan declared, trying to make sense of it all. Dr. McGivney was dead, his _mother, his mother was dead._

 

Molly shook her head, “It was a long time ago. But there still a few... a few who know. The few true believers, who've been waiting for their angels to come and save them. You came to bring me to Heaven, Khan. I simply helped you get rid of people standing in our way,”

 

“You're no better than them,” he snarled suddenly. The shock had dissipated, and he couldn't bear sparing another glance to the destroyed corpse. His hands clenched into fists at his sides as he started forward, his voice dropping low, “You're a monster. You don't deserve Heaven, you- you- _murderer.”_

 

Molly didn't move, not even when he was close enough to grab her neck and hold her up in the air. She choked, dropping the heart to the ground as she scratched at his hand. But she was weak, she was useless, she was _inferior_ to his strength.

 

“You're,” she gasped out, “you're just as bad as me.”

 

Khan's chest panged at the sound of those words. He winced in pain. His arm shook. It wasn't even until he had to drop her that he realized the ache was more than what he thought it was. He looked down slowly, seeing the broken glass embedded right into his chest by Molly's small little hand. Taking a breath was fire – it was in his lung. His feet stuttered underneath him, trying to gain balance, but he collapsed, unable to even scream in pain.

 

He reached for Molly, who was getting to her feet beside him. He grabbed her ankle, but wasn't strong enough to even get a firm grip before she was walking away, running on bloodied feet to the doors.

 

He was still reaching for her when the doors slid closed behind her, and his vision gave way to an endless black.

 


	4. Stranger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tagged it horror, so buckle your seat-belts, kids.

“ _Ladies and gentlemen!” the scientist announced, “For your consideration, Subject Zero Zero One,”_

 

_The boy stepped out onto the makeshift stage, as all the adults with their sharp suits and lovely dresses marvelled at the sight of him, of his newly cleaned wings and his flawlessly beauty._

 

_“Look at him!” they said._

 

_“Astounding!” they said._

 

_“I want him,” he said._

 

_Subject 001 looked out at the crowd in surprise, as the scientist by his shoulder shifted in a way that made him tense._

 

_“He is one of our many fine specimen, but unfortunately Subject 001 is not for sale,”_

 

_“What a shame,” the man sighed. The boy could see him now, right up in the front row. He was leaning back in his seat, all sharp brown suit and wide brown eyes, “I'd love to have the small little thing in my home. My boy here would love to have a toy like him,”_

 

_The man reached out and clapped the boy sitting next to him on the shoulder. When Subject 001 made eye contact with him, the dead look behind his wide brown eyes actually had the subject turning away. He'd never felt inferior in his life, just barely knew the definition of it, but he felt its meaning behind the interaction that just took place. He felt he knew exactly why he was standing on the stage and the boy was sitting like an adult in the audience, legs crossed and utterly still._

 

_“Eh, my boy? What do you think?”_

 

_“Yes,” the boy agreed, leaning forwards to prop his elbow on his knee. The name tag over his breast pocket flashed HOOPER, “He is such a pretty little bird.”_

 

 

* * *

 

 

With another grunt of pain, Khan finally managed to rip the glass from his chest. He grabbed the shirt he'd found, and folding his wing under his arm and around himself, pressed it against the still healing wound. The injury would have immediately killed any normal human, but his healing factor kicked in and kept him hovering above any serious damage. Still, he was weak, and if he was to be attacked again, he was unlikely to survive it.

 

Khan pulled himself across the med bay, out of the puddle of blood that still threatened to overturn his stomach. He needed time to recover, but he wanted to find Molly Hooper and feel her skull snap under his hands. His desire always had overruled his logic. He got himself to the entrance of the med bay, where he had first dropped the PADD he carried. Making sure his wing had the shirt that made a makeshift bandage, he picked up the PADD and typed out the captain override. If he could use the ship to get to Molly, all the quicker. All the safer too, if he knew exactly where the doctor was.

 

“Override not accepted,” the computer chirped.

 

With a frown, he tried again.

 

“Override not accepted.”

 

“Why the hell not?” he growled.

 

“You are not authorized to access this information.”  
  
“I am the captain, I am Commander Khan Noonien Singh. It's _my_ information!”

 

“Incorrect. You are not the captain. Previous captain Commander Khan Noonien Singh has been deleted from the system.”  
  


Khan went cold. Slowly, he asked the question he already knew the answer to, “On who's authority?”

 

The PADD wheezed and beeped, “Captain Molly Hooper.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

The only way he'd get access to Molly's location was through the main system in the bridge, which would respond to any crew member. Even if he was deleted from the system, the computer would immediately classify him as crew. But it wouldn't be easy getting through the corridors going to the bridge. The corridors would be too easy to monitor, and it'd be too easy to monitor his progress. He'd have to slip around the long way, and that meant going through the holding bay.

 

He slipped into the room, tensing for the sudden appearance of the doctor. Each of the prisoner cells were empty – except for the one he'd filled himself. But didn't look the same way he'd left it as. The entire cell was clouded over, filled with a white smoke that blocked everything.

 

The hostage Carol Marcus was nowhere to be seen.

 

Carefully, he stepped out of the shadows, casting his gaze around carefully. He moved as close as he dared to the glass, trying to squint through the fog. There was nothing, just a blankness that chilled him to the pit of his stomach.

 

This was wrong.

 

This was all wrong.

 

He touched his chest, pushing his wing against the wound as he cupped his eyes with the other, leaning in so close his nose almost touched the glass.

 

_“Monster! Savage! Evil, evil creature!”_

 

He scrambled back, nearly stumbling over his feet when the hostage threw herself against the glass, screeching and hissing at him. Rather, what was left of the hostage.

 

Carol Marcus's flesh was half gone, sagging as if time had spun ahead for her and only her. Her eyes bugged out of their sockets, more white than the blue that remained, her pupils barely seen in the light. Slobber covered her chin and the collar of her Starfleet blue dress, littered with bile, almost like blood. Her body's way of rejecting the air she breathed, the air that drove her mad.

 

_“You brought them here, you brought them here!”_

 

Carol threw herself against the glass again, unable to pound her fists due to the restraints that still kept her trapped. She hissed and spit, her saliva covering the glass as she thrashed.

 

“Dr. Marcus-!”

 

_“You killed them! Murderer!_ _**Murderer!** _ _ ” _

 

He staggered away from the cell. His mind brought forth unwanted images of the glass shattering, of the creature coming after him, of never stopping until she was finished with him. Until she had one broken syringe in one hand, and a mangled piece of a heart in the other.

 

Khan turned and fled from the room, the hostage's vicious screeches following him out the door.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The bridge was empty when Khan raced in. That was what worried him the most. He'd honestly expected to find Molly there, at the beginning of everything. As he walked down the steps, approaching the navigation panels, he stared the view screen, where Molly had once declared all his enemies dead. It'd only been a few weeks, and yet it felt like a lifetime ago. Hell, only two hours ago felt like a lifetime ago. The memories of being happy with Molly didn't feel real, as if someone had told him the story and he'd visualized it. That Molly Hooper didn't seem like the Molly Hooper he knew, and was afraid of, now.

 

But he'd always known. He'd always known Molly Hooper was ruthless. He'd always known Molly Hooper was a murderer.

 

She was just as bad as he was.

 

With a few taps, the stars littering the view screen disappeared, blocked by a locating monitor. He tapped Molly's name into the system, and within seconds, a map of the starship was pulled up, and her coordinates were targeted.

 

“Cargo bay,” the computer whirred, “Evacuation chute,”

 

“Security feed,” he demanded, already working on cancelling all evacuation procedures. As the ship confirmed the order, he felt a surge of victory, knowing that all the panels to the shuttles were shutting down, locking the doctor into the ship. She'd have to face him eventually, she'd have to go toe to toe, and she would lose.

 

“There is no security feed for evacuation chute.”

 

Khan hissed air out from behind his teeth, and slammed his fists against the back of the helmsman's chair. What the hell was Molly doing?

 

“Cargo bay,” the computer repeated, “Garbage chute.”

 

“Security feed?”

 

The screen buzzed with static, and there was a flash of the engine before the static returned and the computer said, “There is no security for garbage chute.”

 

The bloody doctor was destroying the cameras.  _ How? _

 

No matter. Damn the entire idea of trying to figure her out. He didn't care what processed in her mind. To be quite frank, the idea of knowing what she was thinking sent a chill down his spine.

 

“Open the chute,” he commanded, affirming his order with a few taps of a keyboard.

 

The security feed made a tortuously loud howling sound. Air scraping against metal. Nails clawing against metal. The sound filled the entire bridge, as if it were the bridge that was being sucked into space. Khan instinctively covered his ears, shrinking under the pressure of the noise. Finally, unable to stand it, he slammed his hand down on a dial and the roar died out, cut off by the sound of sliding doors.

 

Khan gave a sigh, and collapsed back into the captain's chair. Without any prompts to keep it active, the view screen closed down, once again revealing the emptiness of space. Finally, given time to breathe, his chest heaved for air. He gulped it down greedily. He let his wings unfurl, drooping over the armrests of the chair. Carefully, he removed the shirt from its place on his chest, and surveyed the damage. He'd have to get back to the med bay, find something to seal the internal damage. But going back would mean facing the corpse of Dr. McGivney, brutally cut open by a single vial of glass. One broken syringe. He couldn't even stand the thought of it, blinking hard. He gave a shuddering breath, and clutched the makeshift clotter back to his chest. Khan was suddenly all too aware of how large the starship was for one crew member.

 

The ship, as if sensing its presence in his thoughts, whirred and chirped.

 

Instead of comfort, Khan realized how uncomfortable the chair was all of a sudden. Like it was too small for him, like it was made for someone else.

 

“Cargo bay,” the computer beeped, “External corridors,”

 

Khan didn't even dare to breathe. He waited, as if the permission had not been granted for him to take in oxygen.

 

No, he wouldn't be given permission from her for a very long time. If he wanted something, he was going to have to take it himself.

 

And he was going to take Molly Hooper's weak, inferior life with his bare hands.

 

He got to his feet, letting the thought settle into his mind. He could only think of that one thing now. That pathetic fucking human was going to get her blood all over his hands, and he'd let her live long enough to apologize for it before he crushed her skull.

 

“Vengeance,” he ordered the ship, “Commander override, all lights off. Let's watch her try and sneak up on someone she can't see,”

 

Of course, human eyes couldn't detect shapes in a black void. They needed the light to see. Augment eyes, however, did not.

 

The computer whirred, and the starship went into darkness.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The USS Vengeance hummed around him as he carefully stalked through its corridors. It was almost as if the starship were eagerly anticipating the spill of more blood in its corridors. The machine had been responsible for so much death already, and was barely satisfied. But of course, that would have to mean the star ship had enough sentience to register the deaths it had claimed, enough sentience to feel hunger.

 

Star ships were not bloodthirsty. Simply their makers, and simply their crew.

 

There he went again, calling himself something as mundane and insulting as simple. Khan had, of course, been the one to design this ship. He himself had once referred to it as a grim reaper, mercilessly taking soul after soul to the grave. Sometimes even the souls of the dead with them.

 

Carol Marcus' insanity was still ringing in his ears.

 

_“Monster! Savage! Evil, evil creature!”_

 

_“Murderer!_ _**Murderer!** _ _ ” _

 

“Khan.”

 

He paused, not daring to take another step. That wasn't Marcus' voice. He glanced over his shoulder, fearing the worst, but he was alone in the hall.

 

“I know... I know you're looking for me,” her voice was soft, light even. As if they were children playing a game of hide and seek. His gaze finally locked onto the speaker over his head, a fuddled shape in the dark.

 

“It's no use, Khan...” Molly's voice sang over the channel, “You can't kill me...”

 

His chest heaved at the sound, as if he were about to cry. No. He wouldn't succumb to his sentiment, or her manipulation.

 

“You see, my angel... you are a monster.”

 

Carol's words echoed in his head, bouncing around again and again.

 

_ “Monster! Savage! Evil, evil creature!” _

 

“You are evil, my angel... there's nothing good about you at all... except for me.”

 

Khan hissed through his teeth, trying to ignore the way his throat closed.

 

_ She's not wrong,  _ a voice murmuring at the back of his head explains,  _ She's not wrong. _

 

“I'm the only good thing about you... and you... you're the only thing good about me... Oh, my angel... if we don't have each other, neither of us can go to the light... if you want to kill me... well, you're going to have to die too.”

 

Khan, unable to bear the sound of her, threw his fist against the nearest access panel, and escaped behind the sliding door. It wasn't until he got into the room and the door clicked shut behind him that he realized his mistake.

 

“Monster! Savage! Evil, evil creature!”

 

It hadn't been in his head.

 

He wasn't going crazy.

 

The holding bay had been behind the wall the entire time, with Carol rocking against the glass, her pinned arms still managing to scrape nails against the glass.

 

Molly was waiting for him, covered in blood that could hardly been differentiated between Dr. McGivney's and her own. Her legs were bare, having lost her boots, but also having been stripped of skin and gratuitous chunks of muscle. Over her head, was the same kind of helmet she'd escaped onto the USS Vengeance with, her face glowing with the pale blue light. She might not be able to see anything in the darkness of the ship, but with that kind of helmet, she didn't have to. It could detect Khan moving forwards slowly, cautiously.

 

Dangling in one of Molly's hands, was something that Khan, at first, assumed was an older lamp. But then he recognized the device from his own store of invented weaponry, and felt his heart drop right into his stomach.

 

“You know what this is, don't you?” Molly asked, her head tilting innocently. She couldn't help the curl of a victorious smile.

 

Khan's eyes flitted. From Carol's cell, the dark shape that was her body, curled against the room, rocking back and forth to continue thumping against the glass, fingers scrambling for safety – to the empty cell next to hers, that was yet to be filled with the toxic gas that drove Carol insane and half-dead.

 

It was still  _ yet  _ to be filled.

 

“Carol. Stop now,” Molly sang. Immediately, the caged creature stopped, going eerily still in her cell. Khan could hear her breathing, inhumanly rapid and shallow. He looked from the woman, back to the monster waiting for him to turn to her. When he did, her smile returned. Her teeth were glowed in the light. 

 

“Do you know,” Molly stepped forward slowly. Her flesh oozed against the floor as she stepped, and her face contorted from the pain of it. As she moved her other foot forwards, the toes slid back, dragging across the floor, “Do you know what happened me, Khan? Shall I tell you?”  
  


“I happened,” he gritted out.

 

“You did.” Unbelievably, Molly smiled, and held her device higher. The toxic green that emitted from it glowed brighter than her helmet, throwing new and awful shadows across her face. She stepped closer, and dragged her foot along after her. Unable to help himself, Khan staggered back. Molly smiled that small little victorious smile.

 

“You see, the itsy bitsy spider, went  _ down _ the water spout. Just for a change. You see, um-” the sudden stumble she had made Khan's heart flutter. He wanted to bang his head against the wall because the feeling, toss himself against it over and over again like the deranged woman in the cell, as if all that insanity could rid himself of the still lingering feelings of  _ want _ and  _ need  _ all directed at the monster that slinked closer.

 

“Well, the spider, she had something very important that she had collect. She would've been able to get it, but  _ someone  _ had moved it to a secret location. So down the water spout she went. But down came the rain, and well, stripped the spider clean of the skin on her legs,” Molly slowly pivoted, her broken foot dragging across the ground. The bloody legs oozed with each step.

 

“Luckily, the spider was able to escape, by clinging to the ladder that had helped her down. Luckily, she was able to get what she went to collect in the first place, before it was sucked into the vacuum of space forever.”

 

He had planned on taking her head right off her scrawny neck. He had planned on pushing his thumbs into her eyes and letting them pop out on the other side. He had planned on making a mess of her brains all over the ground.

 

Molly stepped right in front of him, smaller than usual because of her limp, and held up the device again.

 

“You know what this is, don't you?” she repeated.

 

He had planned so many things, and now he couldn't touch her.

 

Reluctantly, Khan nodded to Molly's question.

 

“Good,” she cooed, “Now. As your queen, I command you to take me to the medical bay. We have work to do, my angel.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Lights on, gradual to 50%,” Khan said as they stepped in. He'd reluctantly led the way through the dark, from the holding bay to the med bay. Even though the ship took its time turning the lights back on, his eyes still stung from the brightness. Hyper aware of every ache on his body, his wing folded back around his torso, pressing the shirt to his wound. He'd stopped bleeding, but had a certain gut feeling that he'd need the extra protection.

 

Molly's hand, confident and unafraid, skirted along his other wing, curling possessively around each primary feather. He resisted the urge to shiver, along with the nausea that bubbled up from his stomach.

 

“Go ahead and take Dr. McGivney out of her cryotube, please,” Molly asked, gesturing ahead.

 

Resisting became a whole lot harder.

 

He closed his eyes, his body covered in a cold sweat. He couldn't bear to look. He couldn't even bear to think about it. His mouth formed words, words he never thought he'd practice in his life.

 

“P-Please. Please, anything else, I-”

 

“What if I slip in the mess, Khan? I'm already so hurt,” Molly sighed, “Khan. Look at me. Look at what you did to me,”

 

His breath stuttered out, and his eyelids peeled open.

 

Molly stood in front of him, the device swinging from her hand as if it was a basket of goodies, not a fatal invention. She tilted her head, leaning her weight against her good foot, and slowly dragged her bent foot forwards.

 

Khan finally shuddered, and turned away, grasping at the edge of a cryotube. Tiber's peaceful slumber continued. The younger augment was alike him in every way, and yet he had not suffered through all the horrors Khan experienced. He slept on, not even aware of the trauma his fellow augment faced barely inches away.

 

“Anything else,” he finally begged.

 

“I didn't say there was a choice,” her voice was suddenly hard. It was twisted and low, in a way it had never been before. He strongly suspected it was the most true sound he'd ever heard coming out of her mouth.

 

The device creaked in her hand.

 

With a shuffling inhale, Khan finally stood up straight. He swallowed down his fear, and turned to face the demon that waited before him. After a long beat of not breaking eye contact from those wide brown eyes with that dead look behind them, his gaze slid away. He looked at Molly's massacre, and stepped towards it.

 

Every nerve ending seemed to stop working. He couldn't feel anything, not even McGivney's body as he scooped her carefully into his arms. For some reason, he expected her to open her eyes, as if waking up from a horrible dream, a horrible dream he'd experienced with her. A horrible, awful folie a deux.

 

“Where do you want her?”

 

“Oh, I say just drop her anywhere,” Molly replied easily.

 

 _Fuck you_. The words curled at the back of his tongue and made a home. It'd be so easy to spit them out, to hiss them out, to shout them out, tossing them in her face. But instead of speaking, he simply danced around the rules of her game. He walked away, right to the end of the med bay, where beds had yet be used. He placed McGivney down in the far corner and spread his wings, shielding her from sight of the devil lurking over his shoulder.

 

“I'm sorry,” he whispered, too quiet for Molly to hear. He touched the scientist's cheek, whispering his apology over and over until it gave way to whimpering.

 

 _Don't cry, don't cry,_ he warned himself, as he had for as long as he could remember. But tears came forth nonetheless, wave after wave of grief and sorrow he'd tried to bury, tried to bury during his year of service to Starfleet, his escape with Molly on the Vengeance, finding out about Chen and McGivney's murders, Carol's screams still ringing in his mind.

 

_You killed them. Murderer!_ _**Murderer!** _

 

He'd brought Molly on board. He'd doomed the augments to their fate, caged forever. His knees bucked underneath him, and he fell, still clinging to the table he'd given McGivney.

 

Weak. Simple. Inferior. Monster. Savage. Evil, evil creature.

 

He'd only wanted to give the ones that deserved it their paradise.

 

Small, little hands found his shoulders, gliding down his back until small, little fingers found his feathers, making themselves comfortable between his coverts.

 

“Don't cry,” she reminded him, repeating the order he'd given himself before. Her mouth placed a kiss in his hair, slowly fitting herself behind him. Her hands ran over his wings again and again, claiming every inch of him. She was so small, and she owned every inch of him. She really was a small little thing.

 

Molly had gotten everything she wanted. She had absolutely _ruined_ him.

 

“You know what has happen now? We can't come back from all of this. You want me dead, you'll always want me dead. But I can't die,” her fingers dug so deep against his wings that it genuinely hurt, “Not without you. So I want you... I want you to climb into her cryotube, and lie still for me. And don't move a bit, don't move for a very long time. And when I'm ready, when I know you can't hurt me anymore, I'll take you out of there, and we'll go. We'll go to our paradise,”

 

Really, he should have known from the beginning. He should have seen this coming. He always knew what she was.

 

Molly Hooper was ruthless.

 

Molly Hooper was a murderer.

 

Molly Hooper was just about as evil as he was.

 

He went still at the thought.

 

Of course, that had to mean Khan Noonien Singh was just about as evil as _she_ was.

 

Khan twisted around, grabbing Molly by her side. He yanked her up as he stood, and took her by the neck once more. His hand fit perfectlyunderneath the helmet.

 

“Yes,” he hissed out, pulling her close, “Now this... This. Is. _Perfect._ ”

 

With a roar, he threw her across the room. The helmet clanged against the metal of the wall, but she still clutched the device in her hand, and he wasted no time crossing the room to grab her once more, hauling her up by the front of her bloody dress.

 

Molly yelped, twisting in pain underneath his ruthless grip. She gasped for breath, hyperventilating as her eyes wildly took her in her surroundings.

 

“K-Khan? P-please, no, we have to- where's Dr.-” she cried out again, as he tightened his grip on her neck. She scrambled against him, begging with tears in her eyes, “D-Dr. McCoy, where is he? This isn't- what did you do? _What did you do?_ ”

 

Khan, unable to understand, dropped her. Molly screamed as her feet hit the floor. She leaned forward, looking at her legs in horror. She wept on the ground, mumbling in insanity.

 

“This isn't the Enterprise, this isn't the Enterprise. I don't- I-I don't remem- you killed them, didn't you? _Didn't you?!_ ” she shrieked.

 

Furious, Khan went forward, and drove his foot right into her head. She fell back, hitting her head against the medical table behind her. He remembered a different med bay, the room shaking as the Vengeance attacked the Enterprise, cradling Molly's head behind her as she recovered from her hit.

 

He blinked sharply, shaking his head. Was Molly-

 

Agony drove right up his leg as Molly hit him with the device before scrambling backwards. Snarling, he lunged forward and grabbed her arm, yanking back hard enough that there was a sickening crack of bone snapping under his grip. Khan dragged her up again and threw once more, hard enough that she hit the opposite wall headfirst, her neck cracking to the side. She fell to the floor like a ragdoll, limbs sprawled out.

 

Khan collapsed, finished a battle he had never wanted to fight in the first place. A battle he never imagined he'd ever have to fight. But it was over.

 

It was over.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...

 

 

 

 

 

 

...

 

His head twitched at the sound of a crack.

 

...

 

And another.

 

...

 

And another.

 

...

 

The sounds didn't stop.

 

Slowly, his heart hammering in his chest, hard enough that he was sure his wound would leak with the rest of the blood in his system, he lifted his head and looked.

 

Drawing her limbs back together, Molly staggered to her feet. One wrist pointing the wrong direction, her head tilted permanently to the side from the break in her neck. Some things, wouldn't heal.

 

“No,” Khan breathed out. His body screamed at him, _don't get up, no more fights, no more battles. Don't get up. You can't win this one._

 

The device swung from Molly's hands as she let out a laugh. It sounded positively mechanical.

 

“Do you know why you were given wings?” Molly asked, stepping forwards, before dragging her foot along. Her helmet was cracked right across the screen, and her voice malfunctioned through the speaker, coming out in a croak.

 

“No,” Khan growled, “No, you can't have! It's impossible,”

 

She ignored him, pulling herself closer, “You got your wings, so you can carry me to the light. So you can carry us all to the paradise we deserve.”

 

Her head flopped against her shoulder, as if she were going to raise it and her twisted neck stopped her.

 

“What are you?” Khan demanded, clinging to the med table beside him, “No human could have survived that.”

 

“You think those scientists long ago would've let anyone _inferior_ be carried to the light? Angels were made to bring the superior beings to Heaven. You're not an augment, Khan. You're looking right at one,”

 

Molly gave her small little smile.

 

“You're an angel, Khan. You were made for me.”

 

He couldn't move. He couldn't even breathe.

 

She never gave him permission to breathe.

 

He could only watch hopelessly as she swung her hand around the front of her weapon. White smoke, as horrifying as the fog that filled Dr. Marcus' cell, filtered out as the device flicked on.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Many years ago, a special boy looked at an angel for the first time. He wasn't allowed to keep the angel, because the people who kept the angel were spoiled bastards who didn't know what the fuck they had. But the special boy never forgot the angel, and promised himself he'd get the angel one day. He grew up, got married, and had a small little girl who loved to poke frogs until they bled out and bring in birds she trapped herself._

 

_His small little girl was very special too, and knew that one day, her angel would come for her._

 

_Until that day, she prayed and prayed, as her daddy brushed his hands over her back, as if she were the one with wings._

 

_“And may my angel bring me to the light...”_

 

_Her Mummy would sometimes worry at the door as she said her prayer. Mummy thought it was all wrong. But Mummy was inferior. Mummy was weak. Mummy was simple._

 

_“And may my angel kill anyone who stands in the way...”_

 

_Sometimes she forgot. Who she was, what she was. What she was waiting for. But it was okay. Because she remembered. She would always remember, in the end. She'd always remember, and she'd always get what she want._

 

_“And may my angel stay with me forever...”_

 


End file.
